Racial Impacts of New Gainesville Construction

During the summer of 2022, single-family zoning became a hot topic in Gainesville; the City Commission began discussion on reforming zoning regulations in an effort to undo exclusionary zoning, a planning tactic with a long history of enforcing de facto race- and class-based segregation. The City specifically proposed the consolidation of residential zoning into a single "Neighborhood Residential" zone that would allow for up to quadplexes city-wide, and loosening other regulations such as setbacks, occupancy limits, related family, etc. The efforts were widely controversial among both conservative and leftist stakeholders, stoking cries of lower property values, changing neighborhood character, and even gentrification.

My take on the issue was summarized in my article to the Gainesville Sun. In Gainesville, development is concentrated either in Black neighborhoods as infill or block-level razings, and in completely new subdivisions on Gainesville's periphery. Although zoning amendments change what buildings are legally possible in an area, what type of residential form ends up taking shape is determined by the land value and market. The taste for single-family suburban-style developments has scarcely waned, so new single-family housing subdivisions will still be built for the taste of white and upper middle class homebuyers. However, in pre-existing Black and Brown neighborhoods like the Eastside, Porters, and Seminary Lane, residents are likely to be poorer and in the rental market rather than the housing market. Therefore, new housing is likely to be denser - to get more value out of land - but also geared towards renters since the market of Black homebuyers is slimmer.

This argument doesn't strictly address where development is likely going to happen, but just the forms of housing likely in the long term with the passing of the upzoning amendment. To aid in answering that question, I created a dashboard that displays development broken down by neighborhood, race, type of development, and the type of developer (for-profit, non-profit, private party-commissioned).

The first, second, and fourth highest development rates in named neighborhoods occurred in newly built subdivisions. In preexisting neighborhoods, Black neighborhoods Duval and Fifth Ave, and mixed neighborhood Pleasant Street had the most development.

Development in preexisting neighborhoods is already concentrated in Black majority neighborhoods, owing to lower market property values from the historical devaluation of Black neighborhoods. Any impacts from changes to zoning, and thus the "profitability" of land to a developer, will likely affect black neighborhoods first.

With upzoning, I tentatively fear the erosion of Black community wealth and longevity due to upzoning creating more rental housing and less owner-occupied housing. I also fear the predation of developers and investors on Black and Brown cash-poor homeowners.

Upzoning is a change on urban form without a preservation of urban process. While the City gains a more desirable form of density, here the process and governance of Black autonomy within Black spaces is being challenged. With less ownership, even if there are more people able to live in a neighborhood, the neighborhood becomes hollowed out as people live in homes they don't control, and cash/equity is divested to profit-hungry landlords and developers.

Good can come of upzoning if done right. A block that densifies and is owned by something akin to a Black and Brown community land trust, or blocks bought and purchased even by a socially knit circle akin on neighborhood preservation, with a dense urban form can do a lot of good. To bring in chemical terms, this is a solution with high transition state energy but is ulimately the most stable, autonomous, desirable configuration. That is, it takes a lot of energy - organizing capital, people, and community into a communal governance - to make it happen, but once it happens it's resilient to outside change.

The impetus lies on communities to organize, and allies to invest in dense, permanently affordable community-controlled housing.