duncan associates report for City of Gainesville Florida, April 2002

City Workshop on Reports and Recommendations from:
University Neighborhoods Ad-hoc Committees
and Duncan Associates

A Gainesville City commission workshop will cover the findings and recommendations of the city's ad-hoc committtees that have been studying problems within single family neighborhoods in the University context area. The City also hired Duncan Associates to provide consultation on these problems. The Duncan Associates report, Analysis of Issues Regarding Student Housing near the University of Florida, and its recommendations will also be discussed at this workshop.

The workshop will be held in City Hall Auditorium, beginning at 6:00pm, on Tuesday, September 3rd. The workshop is open to all citizens. This webpage was created to encourage residents of the impacted neighborhoods to attend and to have access to the report prior to the meeting.

This workshop and consultant report follow the work first begun in Fall 1999 by city ad-hoc committees. These committees have been studying the problems and negative impacts created in the single family neighborhoods near the University of Florida as a result of the increasing presence of student rentals and absentee landlords within these neighborhoods, and other pressures on these neighborhoods.

The Duncan Associates report can be viewed by clicking here . Viewing requires the Adobe Acrobat software. This report is very large (3.1 Megabytes) and can take quite long to download and render for viewing, so please be patient. Duncan Associates denied my request for permission to convert this report to a standard webpage format and therefore it is only available in this huge and cumbersome format.

If you have trouble viewing the report directly from this webpage, you might have to download the file to your computer and then view the downloaded report file on your computer using Adobe Acrobat. To download the file, right-click (use the button on the right side of your mouse) on the report link above, then select "save link as" (Netscape) or "save target as" (IE) to save the file to your computer.

The table of contents for this report appears below.

Table of Contents Page
INTRODUCTION1
  OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE1
    The University Context Area1
    The Issue in Gainesville1
    Character of the Use 3
    Policy Reflections4
  ABOUT THIS REPORT 6
    Scope6
    Author6
    A Note on Data7
HOME OWNERSHIP AND NEIGHBORHOODS 11
  POLICY ISSUES11
  STUDENT HOUSING AROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA17
    Overview17
    Analysis Using Census Data18
    Analysis of Local Data19
    The Zoning Context21
    Complaints and Enforcement23
    Summary and Conclusion26
HOUSING IN SMALL UNIVERSITY CITIES29
  COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS29
    The Peer Communities and Universities – Selection29
    Overview of the Universitie30
    Student Housing Patterns31
    Alternative Analysis of Campus Housing34
    Factors Influencing Housing Patterns35
    Analysis38
    Conclusions40
  ISSUES AND PROGRAMS IN OTHER UNIVERSITY COMMUNITIES40
REGULATORY APPROACHES45
  OVERVIEW45
  ENFORCEMENT 45
  ZONING AND OCCUPANCY LIMITS47
    Density Limits on Rental Houses 47
    Occupancy Limits on Rental Houses based on Dwelling Size50
    Occupancy Limits on Rental Houses based on Parking Availability51
    Parking Design52
    Nonconforming Status55
    Market Impacts of Limits on Student Rentals in Single-Family Homes 56
  OTHER REGULATIONS59
    Holding Business Owners Accountable60
    Permit Fees and Enforcement Costs 64
    Party Patrol66
    Other Approaches to Parties and Noise67
POLICY AND ACTION OPTIONS FOR GAINESVILLE69
  EXPANDED ENFORCEMENT69
    Enforcement Options69
    Related Options69
  PERMIT FEES70
    Policy Options70
    Related Options70
  SPACING OR DENSITY LIMITS ON STUDENT RENTAL HOUSES70
    Policy Options70
    Related Options70
  OTHER ZONING CHANGES71
    Policy Options71
    Related Options71
  CHANGES TO LANDLORD PERMITTING ORDINANCE71
    Policy Options71
    Related Options72
  OTHER POSSIBLE ORDINANCES73
    Policy Options73
    Related Options73
APPENDIX A: DATA TABLES WITH COMPARISONS TO PEER UNIVERSITIES/COMMUNITIES 1
APPENDIX B: SAMPLE ORDINANCES1
  COLORADO: BOULDER1
    Nuisance Party Ordinance1
  FLORIDA: TALLAHASSEE 5
  ROOMING HOUSE ORDINANCE5
  ILLINOIS: MACOMB13
  INDIANA: BLOOMINGTON17
  INDIANA: WEST LAFAYETTE27
  IOWA: IOWA CITY45
  MICHIGAN: ANN ARBOR75
  NEW YORK: ITHACA 119
  PENNSYLVANIA: WEST CHESTER 127
  VIRGINIA: BLACKSBURG 133



- Susan Wright, August 29, 2002