City Council approves agreement on planned Maricamp development

Over the objections of neighbors warning against “hitting the iceberg’’ of more traffic on over-burdened local roads, the Ocala City Council last week conditionally approved plans that could pave the way for a 320-unit multifamily development on Maricamp Road.

The development agreement with traffic improvements for 23.51 acres located near the 2400 block of Southeast Maricamp Road is still contingent on final rezoning approval, due to it not being advertised separately. The council scheduled a new rezoning hearing for March 1.

Owned by the Albright Family Trust, the property is accessed via an 8-foot-wide road that connects to the western end of Southeast 24th Street. The property was annexed into the city in 2006, but the zoning was never established. There now is one single-family home on the property.

Several residents of Woodland Village, located southeast of the property, turned up at the Feb. 15 meeting to raise concerns largely focused on prospect of the development adding more traffic to an already taxed Maricamp Road.

But a consultant told the crowd a traffic study conducted in October concluded the development would not generate any additional traffic on Maricamp Road.

“We have evaluated the traffics impacts for this particular site and looked at what it’s generating. We are not generating any more traffic than what is currently approved on the site through that land-use policy,’’ said Amber Gartner of the design firm Kimley-Horn.

Gartner acknowledged that other developments in the area that had applications come in after the Albright application were not assumed in the traffic study.

“Although there’s a lot of development going in the area, there is standard procedure for how these things are evaluated and looked at on a case-by-case basis,’’ she said. “So, the site is projected to generate, approximately 166 trips during the PM peak hour.”

PM peak hours are the highest volume of traffic for a continuous hour between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. during a typical weekday.

Eric Hayden, a resident of Woodland Village, raised concerns over the point of views he was hearing during the presentations.

“You’ve heard this evening from paid advocates on behalf of Albright,” said Hayden. “Our concern as residents is that we look at the whole situation. Every little thing that changes here that you’ve been asked and have continued to be asked to consider separately raises the temperature notch where we live.”

Hayden asked the council to look at the aggregate impact on those who live near the proposed development.

“It concerns me when I see an image up there of State Road 200, saying, ‘Look, things on Maricamp are going to be fine. Just like 200.’ Well, no, we don’t want it to look like State Road 200. I think we’re headed in the wrong direction if that’s the general idea,” he said.

Michael Lay, another Woodland Village resident, referred to recent development off Maricamp Road as a “pandemic of development.”

“We understand that the natural evolution of a city is that it grows,” he said. “And our inclusive residents are looking forward to welcoming more families and businesses to our area. We are not anti-development. However, we are anti-traffic. We are anti-traffic accidents. And we are certainly anti-traffic fatalities.”

Lay said traffic on Maricamp Road is already “terrible,” to say nothing of adding more cars to the mix through development deal upon development deal.

Another developer, Trimcor, has announced plans to build luxury apartment complex just a few blocks northwest from the Albright site.

“We’re not going to fix that. We’re going to add another 600-plus residences and some associated retail destinations to this already failing and dangerous traffic area,” said Lay. “We really need you to change direction here before we really hit the iceberg.”

Gartner, the consultant, said the traffic study was conducted per “standard methodologies” approved by the City of Ocala. She added the methodology was reviewed and approved by the city, Marion County and the Transportation Planning Organization (TPO). The methodology also included an evaluation of the site with its current access on 24th Street at Maricamp Road, as well what Gartner called “background traffic.”

“So, for the case of the Albright property, we did include the ARC commercial development as background traffic and our future traffic projections,” she said.

The development agreement includes several traffic improvements. These include signal-timing adjustments to allow for additional green lights for the eastbound, left-turn lane; an extension of the eastbound left turning lane to allow for additional cars to queue; and installation of a “Right Turn on Red Must Yield to U-Turn” sign for the southbound right turning lane from Southeast 24th Street to SR 464.

Councilmember Jim Hilty was the lone no-vote against the agreement. Council President Ire Bethea, Sr., and members Jay Musleh, Kristen Dreyer and Barry Mansfield all voted to approve.