Title
Purchase Agreement - Land for Fire Station 8 (B)
This item requests that the Commission authorize the City Manager to execute a purchase agreement for approximately two acres of vacant land behind 4127 NW 34th Street for construction of Gainesville Fire Rescue Station 8.
Explanation
For several years the Fire Rescue staff has been evaluating improvements to response time within the City of Gainesville. Standards for fire rescue services are published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA); additionally, the City's Fire Department is also evaluated and given a classification rating by the Insurance Services Office (ISO). The ISO rating is used by the insurance industry to establish fire insurance rates for properties in the protected areas. The NFPA standards identify a travel time of four minutes for the closest fire suppression unit or advanced life support unit once they have been paged for a fire or emergency medical call. Fire rescue staff believes that emergency response apparatus can cover two miles in the allowed four minutes based on a travel average of thirty (30) miles per hour. The ISO standard does not use travel times; their evaluation considers property located within 1.5 road-miles of an engine company. Staff uses the NFPA standards for illustration purposes and believes this standard provides good quality and cost-effective services to our community.
In 2005, the City Commission committed to building and operating an eighth fire station in the vicinity of NW 39th Avenue and 34th Street. This station will provide coverage to an area that is essentially built-out where there is very little available property suitable for a fire station. Over the past year and a half, multiple parcels have been evaluated and several property owners contacted in an effort to secure property suitable to locate the new station. Due to the response and coverage model changes that would occur if the fire station is located away fr...
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