Tanzer: An experiment called “Gainesville”

OPINION

BY KIM TANZER

On July 18, the Gainesville City Commission will consider the city-wide upzoning of all residential properties, allowing lot splits to create very small lots across the City and allowing cottage neighborhoods to be developed within existing neighborhoods.

This will be the fifth major effort to increase city-wide residential density in the past six years.

This effort comes despite the fact that since 2016, the City has approved construction of more than 8,000 new dwelling units , potentially housing more than 18,000 additional people, based on our average household size. Beyond increasing height limits on most individual apartment buildings and various spot zoning approvals, the City Commission approved the right to build a house and 2 accessory dwelling units on any lot in the City (2020) and to build on existing RSF-4 very small non-conforming lots (2023). By its own count, the City currently has acreage zoned to build an additional 14,514 dwelling units —beyond everything mentioned above.

The stated goal of the current effort is to allow small-scale developers to split Gainesville’s 115 vacant lots into two or more lots, to provide affordable starter homes for first-time home buyers by reducing the cost of the newly created lots. Providing affordable starter homes is a laudable goal, but I am among those who do not believe this plan, as proposed, will work.

The non-profit Gainesville Neighborhood Voices (GNV Voices) supports creating more affordable starter homes and has offered modifications to the proposed ordinance that may achieve this goal. (Note: I am a member of the GNV Voices Board of Directors, but I write here as an individual, not on behalf of that Board.)

First, though, since we have built so much housing in recent years and have capacity to build even more without further changes, including on these 115 vacant lots, why has this multi-pronged proposal emerged? City Commissioner Bryan Eastman, its primary champion, and others have cited “what other cities are doing” to justify this bold proposal.

However other cities do not have Gainesville’s overwhelming college student population, and they are not doing all the things proposed within this ordinance.

Before developing a position on the current proposal, GNV Voices did our own homework to learn what other cities are actually doing.

First, GNV Voices studied four cities most often cited in recent years by the Gainesville City Commission—Durham, North Carolina; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; and Portland, Oregon. We included Alachua County, too. Then, when Mayor Ward suggested we should study college towns instead, we followed his explicit recommendation and added Athens, Georgia; Columbia, Missouri; Columbia, South Carolina; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Tallahassee, Florida. (These cities are home to the Universities of Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida State and FAMU, respectively, along with other local colleges.)

We created a matrix to compare these two sets of cities —their populations, percentage of college students, amount of on-campus student housing, median housing prices, and the upzoning changes these cities have enacted in recent years. That matrix, along with its sources and a more detailed summary , is found on the Gainesville Neighborhood Voices website.

What we found was sobering.

Gainesville has the largest percentage of college students compared to any of these cities: college students comprise 46.5% of our population. The next closest city is Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, with 41.7%. Even Tallahassee’s population is only 22.5% students, while Durham, NC, home of Duke University, hosts only 10% students. At the same time, we house a smaller percentage of students on campus than any other city we studied. As a percentage of our population, we have far more college students living off-campus than comparable cities .

What, some wonder, is the problem with college students? Surely, students and their colleges and universities are the economic drivers of college towns like Gainesville and we should welcome students. We do.

Unfortunately, college students are transient—some staying in rented bedrooms for as little as one semester—and they have financial resources far beyond what many local workers make in the local economy. Near the University, single bedrooms often rent for $1,000 or more per month, and students often rely on student loans or generous families to pay their rent. Ironically, new student housing seems to be driving rents up locally, not down.

As a result, we see that rent and real estate taxes are exploding in certain neighborhoods. In addition, nearby permanent residents sometimes find students’ habits and hours to be incompatible with the quiet enjoyment of their homes. In such cases, the result is that college students drive long-term residents away. This is a problem that hits different areas of Gainesville very unevenly, and it is clear some upzoning advocates do not recognize or care about this impact at all.

An additional wrinkle in the Gainesville landscape has emerged in the past year: the State of Florida passed a law preempting some aspects of local municipalities’ regulations on landlords, making it illegal to limit the number of occupants in residential buildings. For decades, Gainesville allowed only three unrelated people to live in one dwelling unit, and landlords and developers made decisions accordingly. This helped limit the number of students and vehicles in neighborhoods near campus. Now there is no limit to the number of occupants allowed in a dwelling unit. Therefore, it would be possible to build an 18-bedroom “home” and rent it by the room, by the semester. Further-reduced lot sizes will only exacerbate this threat.

What did GNV Voices learn about upzoning changes in other cities? These 10 cities/municipalities have made few and modest changes to their local ordinances; we looked at the proposed zoning changes for Gainesville and found the following:

Replacing varied single family zoning density with one new residential district

None of these cities eliminated varied single family zoning densities to replace them with one new category allowing 12 units per acre while reducing setbacks, as Gainesville proposes.

Lot splits with reduced setbacks and few limitations

Only Durham and Los Angeles have enacted recent policies allowing lots to be split into very small lots. Both cities provide guardrails to protect against over-development. Durham caps the buildable square footage on these newly created lots at a maximum of 1,200 square feet and limits lot splits to its “Urban Tier.” Los Angeles, following a newly enacted California law, allows lot splits but mandates owner-occupancy.

In contrast, Gainesville’s proposed ordinance would not cap buildable square footage or limit the locations of these lot splits. It would continue to allow two accessory dwelling units on the newly created small lots, without required parking or owner-occupancy.

Two accessory dwelling units per lot

Only Gainesville and Portland, Oregon allow two accessory dwelling units (ADUs) per lot. Portland, though, does not allow any ADUs on “constrained sites” prone to flooding. Athens does not allow even one ADU as of this writing, while Alachua County; Durham; Minneapolis; Columbia, SC; and Knoxville require owners to live on-site, while Gainesville does not. Several cities require on-site parking, while Gainesville does not.

Cottage neighborhoods

Cottage neighborhoods are small houses facing a shared courtyard rather than a public street. Portland allows cottage neighborhoods except in its “constrained sites overlay zone,” and Durham, NC is considering “cottage court” or “small house pocket neighborhoods.”

Closer to home, Alachua County just revised its recently adopted “cottage neighborhood ordinance” when it became clear developers were using the ordinance in existing, older neighborhoods to build dense rent-by-the room student housing. Alachua County’s revised ordinance does not allow houses over 1,400 square feet and it requires dedicated on-site parking for each unit. It no longer allows cottage neighborhoods in subdivisions platted prior to 2023.

In contrast, Gainesville would be the only city to allow unlimited square footage, without required on-site parking, in already platted subdivisions across the city.

Summary

Having studied progressive cities and college towns, it is clear Gainesville has the highest percentage of college students seeking off-campus housing and is proposing to enact, simultaneously, the most severe set of changes of any of these towns, without any apparent concerns about the effect on Gainesville’s neighborhoods.

The City Commission contemplates approving this complicated ordinance on July 18, despite having provided housing for 18,000 new residents in the last eight years and having already enacted upzoning changes beyond those of any city we studied.

To put it mildly, this seems like an unwise approach. Gainesville has experimented on its own residents previously, and it has not turned out well.

I join the Gainesville Neighborhood Voices Board of Directors in asking that the City Commission reconsider and add guardrails to this multi-pronged proposal. The GNV Voices briefing book , recently shared with multiple City Commissioners, asks that:

1. On small, newly created lots, building square footage be capped at 1,400 square feet, with one onsite parking space, and restricted ADUs. We believe this will encourage developers to build small starter homes.
2. For the Cottage Neighborhood portion of the ordinance, learn from the recent Alachua County experience and modify the current proposal to track the county’s Cottage Neighborhood Language. We believe this, too, will encourage developers to build small starter homes.
3. Allow lots to be split within current Residential Single Family (RSF) zones without eliminating the underlying categories. (We hope this will provide protection against extraordinary unintended consequences.)

If you care about this issue, contact members of the City Commission and attend the July 18 meeting in City Hall.

Kim Tanzer lives in Gainesville. She is a former UF architecture professor, who was also dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

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