Hutch flips land…a thousand acres here, 880 acres there, 51 acres over yonder.
Hutch may be the biggest land baron in Alachua County…But the land Hutch flips sees very little by way of “value added” enhancement. Unless you happen to believe that saving land for land’s sake is a value added enhancement in its own right.
The above is from a piece I wrote for The Sun back in 2007. The occasion was the 20th anniversary of Alachua Conservation Trust, which Robert “Hutch” Hutchinson helped found and led for many years.
I thought then, and I still believe now, that if Hutch had been flipping land for profit he would be the wealthiest man in Alachua County. And we would have a lot more subdivisions and stip malls and parking lots then we already have.
But of course he’s been doing it to save land from developers…which by his own ethos truly does make Hutch the wealthiest man in Alachua County.
Who else but Hutch could come up with the wonderfully subversive scheme to save land for now and ever more by burying a lot of bodies on it? Hence the Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery, guarding one of Paynes Prairie’s vulnerable flanks.
Listen, nobody’s ever gonna turn that quiet piece of paradise into a parking lot.
So it surprises me not at all that these days Hutch – his county commission service long behind him and apparently already bored with his retirement plan to hustle friends at pool in his Flamingo Hammock digs – is elbow deep in yet another land flipping scheme.
He, his partners and investors have been hard at work for more than a year acquiring and preparing 270-acres of beautifully preserved land near Melrose for the purpose of combining two of Hutch’s great passions in life: Music (hey, he’s the Weeds of Eden’s keyboard wizard, for goodness sakes) and land conservation.
The idea behind the proposed WildFlowers Music Park is simple, he says: A “once-a-year, family-friendly festival to fund the long, careful work of stewardship — restoring native habitat, protecting water and wildlife, and retaining this land as natural and undeveloped.”
Last year Hutch took me and some friends on a walking tour of the music park site. And I gotta say it’s freaking gorgeous property: Spreading, moss-draped oak trees and a blue lake and open spaces that seem ready made for….oh, I dunno…open air concerts maybe.
This week the Alachua County Commission will consider a temporary use permit that would allow WildFlowers to go forward with its first concert.
County commissioners, of all people, ought to be familiar enough with their former colleague’s reputation for environmental integrity to trust that this venture is exactly what it purports to be: A family-friendly music/nature park run by a non-profit.
“I believe the proposed 270-acre music and nature park will be good for Alachua County,” Ruth Steiner, UF regional planning specialist has written. “The three-day festival will feature live music by local bands, camping, activities for kids and teens, and provide a market for local artists and food vendors. It will truly match our county’s tag line “where nature and culture meet.”
Moreover a temporary use permit would give its founders the opportunity to show what the park can do.
“The request is only for one festival,” Steiner continued. “Let’s give Wildflower an opportunity to show what they can do. If they encounter minor problems but the sustainability aspect is successful, they will be applying next year with adjustments, and Melrose will have a park for at least another year (and hopefully longer).”
I understand, and sympathize, that some folks in and around Melrose may be nervous about the park. Change can be scary.
Still, many of the arguments I’ve been hearing against WildFlowers are the same ones I kept hearing decades ago from people – on that same side of the county, coincidently – who believed that the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail was going to destroy their quality of life.
Crime, trash, vandalism, drugs, not-in-my-backyard, etc.
Does anyone seriously believe that, had the nay-sayers prevailed, Alachua County would be better community today without that wildly popular trail?
The irony is that Melrose has itself long been a center for music, arts and crafts. Remember Shake A Rag? Mossman Hall? The town’s galleries, art walk, festivals and the like?
Anyway, here’s hoping the County Commission will grant the permit and give WildFlowers a fighting chance. And, listen, if you want to tell commissioners how you feel about the issue, please contact them at BoCC@alachuacounty.us.
WildFlowers is where culture and nature are gonna meet. How Alachua County is that?
FreeGNV 