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 |
---|---|
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE | 1 |
The University Context Area | 1 |
The Issue in Gainesville | 1 |
Character of the Use | 3 |
Policy Reflections | 4 |
ABOUT THIS REPORT | 6 |
Scope | 6 |
Author | 6 |
A Note on Data | 7 |
HOME OWNERSHIP AND NEIGHBORHOODS | 11 |
POLICY ISSUES | 11 |
STUDENT HOUSING AROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA | 17 |
Overview | 17 |
Analysis Using Census Data | 18 |
Analysis of Local Data | 19 |
The Zoning Context | 21 |
Complaints and Enforcement | 23 |
Summary and Conclusion | 26 |
HOUSING IN SMALL UNIVERSITY CITIES | 29 |
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS | 29 |
The Peer Communities and Universities – Selection | 29 |
Overview of the Universitie | 30 |
Student Housing Patterns | 31 |
Alternative Analysis of Campus Housing | 34 |
Factors Influencing Housing Patterns | 35 |
Analysis | 38 |
Conclusions | 40 |
ISSUES AND PROGRAMS IN OTHER UNIVERSITY COMMUNITIES | 40 |
REGULATORY APPROACHES | 45 |
OVERVIEW | 45 |
ENFORCEMENT | 45 |
ZONING AND OCCUPANCY LIMITS | 47 |
Density Limits on Rental Houses | 47 |
Occupancy Limits on Rental Houses based on Dwelling Size | 50 |
Occupancy Limits on Rental Houses based on Parking Availability | 51 |
Parking Design | 52 |
Nonconforming Status | 55 |
Market Impacts of Limits on Student Rentals in Single-Family Homes | 56 |
OTHER REGULATIONS | 59 |
Holding Business Owners Accountable | 60 |
Permit Fees and Enforcement Costs | 64 |
Party Patrol | 66 |
Other Approaches to Parties and Noise | 67 |
POLICY AND ACTION OPTIONS FOR GAINESVILLE | 69 |
EXPANDED ENFORCEMENT | 69 |
Enforcement Options | 69 |
Related Options | 69 |
PERMIT FEES | 70 |
Policy Options | 70 |
Related Options | 70 |
SPACING OR DENSITY LIMITS ON STUDENT RENTAL HOUSES | 70 |
Policy Options | 70 |
Related Options | 70 |
OTHER ZONING CHANGES | 71 |
Policy Options | 71 |
Related Options | 71 |
CHANGES TO LANDLORD PERMITTING ORDINANCE | 71 |
Policy Options | 71 |
Related Options | 72 |
OTHER POSSIBLE ORDINANCES | 73 |
Policy Options | 73 |
Related Options | 73 |
APPENDIX A: DATA TABLES WITH COMPARISONS TO PEER UNIVERSITIES/COMMUNITIES | 1 |
APPENDIX B: SAMPLE ORDINANCES | 1 |
COLORADO: BOULDER | 1 |
Nuisance Party Ordinance | 1 |
FLORIDA: TALLAHASSEE | 5 |
ROOMING HOUSE ORDINANCE | 5 |
ILLINOIS: MACOMB | 13 |
INDIANA: BLOOMINGTON | 17 |
INDIANA: WEST LAFAYETTE | 27 |
IOWA: IOWA CITY | 45 |
MICHIGAN: ANN ARBOR | 75 |
NEW YORK: ITHACA | 119 |
PENNSYLVANIA: WEST CHESTER | 127 |
VIRGINIA: BLACKSBURG | 133 |
- Susan Wright, August 29, 2002