The Gainesville City Commission voted 4-3 on Thursday to move forward with amendments on lot size requirements across the city and voted 6-1 in favor of an inclusionary zoning policy. 

The votes came at the commission’s General Policy Committee meeting, which only covered the two housing items—continuing years-long efforts to amend Gainesville zoning laws.  

The lot amendment item will head to city staff for a draft ordinance that will need to pass through the City Plan Board. After the plan board vote, the ordinance will return to the City Commission for a first and second reading.  

Commissioner Bryan Eastman brought the lot size proposal forward, and commissioners Reina Saco, Casey Willits and Mayor Harvey Ward supported the motion.  

The inclusionary zoning issue has already worked through the plan board and will go straight to a regular meeting of the City Commission for a first and second reading. City planner Juan Castillo said he anticipates the item will return in the next two or three months. Commissioner Ed Book was the lone dissenting vote.  

On the lot size item, the vote comes almost exactly a year after the current City Commission voted to begin repealing a trio of zoning/housing ordinances passed by the previous commission. Included in that ordinance package was the lot size reforms. 

Eastman argued against a full repeal of that housing package, saying it eliminated the good changes along with the bad. But the City Commission voted 4-3 to continue with the repeal. Last summer, Eastman received permission to hold community meetings on his lot size proposals taken from the previous package and based on a 2021 study.   

The proposal changes the minimum allowed lot size in all of Gainesville’s single-family zoning. The ordinance, if finalized later this year, would allow lots as small as 0.08 acres in all single-family zones. The minimum lot size would need 3,000 square feet, a minimum width of 35 feet and setbacks from the property line.  

Eastman aims to increase the number of small starter homes and the housing supply. The proposal also lowers legal barriers for landowners, giving more options for land.  

Currently, 68% of Gainesville single-family zoning falls under category 1. This category requires lots of 0.28 acres in order to build homes. The codes currently prohibit homes on a smaller lot. Eastman’s proposal would allow someone with a smaller lot to build a home in the category 1 single-family zoning—or any of the single-family zoning categories.  

A landowner could also split a larger lot to accommodate two homes instead of being forced to build only one.  

“I’m not trying to revolutionize the world,” Eastman said at a community meeting in November. “I’m not trying to throw the table up and say, ‘we’re going to change everything with this.’ It’s just trying to take one step into a direction of giving people a little more flexibility, a little more diversity.” 

Eastman said a similar project in Dallas saw relatively few lots use the option, not a rush of change like some commenters feared.  

Commissioners Cynthia Chestnut, Desmon Duncan-Walker and Book voted against the proposal. Book said he didn’t like sweeping changes to all city zoning, and the commissioners also wanted to explore the idea of neighborhoods being able to opt out of the change.  

Duncan-Walker also said she’d like more Gainesville-specific data. Ward said the city already had data from the few areas already zoning with these lot standards—residential conservation zoning.  

Public commenters stood on both sides of the issue, with many members of Gainesville Neighborhood Voices, formed to oppose the previous housing ordinances, speaking in dissent. Other community groups have endorsed the proposal, including the Alachua County Labor Coalition, Habitat for Humanity and the Gainesville-Alachua County Association of Realtors.  

Ward said he thought the lot size concept was good when Eastman brought it up 11 months ago, and he still does.  

“I think that it potentially offers a diversity of housing in our community, and I think it could have an impact—a good impact—on lowering the price of housing in our community,” Ward said. “We can’t guarantee that; we shouldn’t try to guarantee that. We should also try not to guarantee that it will do something horrible because we don’t know that it will, and it’s not likely that it will.” 

The inclusionary zoning proposal has been in the wings for years and has been mentioned in past commission meetings. The plan board worked with city staff over 2023 to craft the language and standards.  

Thursday’s proposal would require developers of rental projects to reserve 10% of their units as affordable, meaning for people earning 80% of area median income. This would apply to all developments of 10 or more units.  

But Castillo said the plan board did consider raising the threshold to 51 units. He said the plan board members worried the new requirement would burden smaller developers.  

City data show that from 2021 through 2023 there were eight applications for rental complexes with less than 51 units and 20 applications with 51 or more units. If inclusionary zoning had been implemented during this period, the properties under 51 units would have provided 19 units of affordable housing while the properties with 51 or more units would have provided 391 units of affordable housing. 

Castillo said city staff still recommends the 10-unit threshold, and Saco used that number in her motion to approve the inclusionary zoning plan.  

Alachua County is also working on a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy after developers never voluntarily entered the program with incentives.

You can watch the full meeting recording on Facebook.