Alachua County, FL Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Density Bonus Law (2026)

10 of the county's Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Element. The overlay supersedes underlying zoning with its own mixed-use districts, including Mixed Use Residential allowing 4-8 or 4-14 dwelling units per acre depending on the amount of non-residential floor area provided. Subsection (f) creates the density bonus itself: public civic uses open to the general public, educational facilities, cultural, social, and active recreation facilities, community centers, and libraries, are permitted in every zoning district within the activity center, and building them earns a bonus of one dwelling unit per 500 square feet of indoor public civic use, or one dwelling unit per 5,000 square feet of outdoor public civic use.

This bonus is scoped narrowly: it applies only to development inside the mapped Eastside Activity Center boundaries shown on Map 12 of the Future Land Use Element, not countywide. The district otherwise sets no minimum setbacks and caps retail floor area (60 percent of non-residential space in the Mixed Use district, 5 percent in Mixed Use-Employment), while requiring streets-and-blocks urban design, mass-transit-accommodating rights-of-way, and on-street parking credit for spaces within 300 feet of the use they serve.