BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their September 19 Regular Meeting, the Gainesville City Commission passed an inclusionary zoning ordinance on second reading and postponed the second reading of a minimum lot size ordinance to October 3.
Inclusionary zoning ordinance presentation
The inclusionary zoning proposal required two ordinances: a Comprehensive Plan amendment and a Land Development Code amendment.
City Clerk Kristen Bryant introduced the Comprehensive Plan update, and Sustainable Development Director Forrest Eddleton explained that the update would allow a 50% increase in units in multi-family developments, part of a suite of tools that staff can use to compensate developers for providing affordable units; to get to a 50% bonus, a developer would also need to provide tree protection and some other elements in the City’s code.
Eddleton said the ordinance amending the Land Development Code would get rid of the existing density bonus program, which has not attracted much interest from developers. The ordinance includes current elements such as pocket plazas, green spaces, and playground areas to earn density bonuses. He said staff recommended setting a lower limit of 51 units (more than 50) in the ordinance, although the Commission changed it to 10 units on first reading . Eddleton said the data did not support reducing it to 10; he said there are 29 developments that would potentially have been affected by the ordinance – 20 over 50 units and nine over 10 units. He continued, “So we have nine that are in between that 10 units and 49 units, and we have 20 developments that would be over that 50.”