Gainesville: Protecting Historically Black Neighborhoods During Development

We are grateful for the collaboration and support of Tarsi Dunlop from Local Progress and former Gainesville Commissioner Gail Johnson. The original text on which this case study is based is part of Local Progress’s Dare to Reimagine series and can be accessed here.

In October 2020, Commissioner Gail Johnson proposed that the Gainesville City Commission should enact a moratorium for 6-12 months on major development in historic and historically Black neighborhoods in Gainesville, Fla. The catalyst for the moratorium was a proposed luxury student housing development with nearly 1,000 beds for the University of Florida, which would have dramatically changed the character of the historic Black neighborhood where it was to be located. In response, a group of neighbors came together to sue the city in order to stop the development.

The growth of the University of Florida has increased pressure to build university developments in surrounding areas, many of which are in historically Black neighborhoods. As a result, these neighborhoods are experiencing a loss of affordable housing, steadily rising rents, and community displacement. The moratorium was proposed to slow the pace of gentrification and “studentification”¹—the process by which specific neighborhoods become dominated by student residential occupation.

Gentrification and studentification are detrimental to communities, and especially to lower-income people of color. In addition to the increased likelihood of displacement, these communities often experience stress, depression, and downward mobility as a result of unfair housing policies.²

The goals of the moratorium were to provide the city with the opportunity to curb displacement, and to develop equitable policies, programs, and processes to guide development and growth in some of the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods. The proposed moratorium required an intentional focus on eliminating racial inequities and barriers, and on making accountable and catalytic investments to assure that lower-income residents live in healthy, safe, and opportunity-rich neighborhoods that reflect their culture. It would also allow the city to design a thorough community engagement process to identify and incorporate the perspectives of community members into the affordable housing strategic plan and forthcoming updates to the city’s comprehensive plan.³

The Gainesville moratorium was ultimately voted down at the end of 2020, signaling an unfortunate disconnect between community engagement and the City Commission’s decision.

The idea for a moratorium on development originated from a visit to Chapel Hill, N.C., when visitors learned about a decade-old effort enacted through the efforts of Marian Cheek Jackson Center. With the Black Lives Matter movement back in the spotlight, it was the perfect time to show in action and through policy that Black Neighborhoods Matter in Gainesville.

Resident Desmon Walker, who then became city commissioner, favored a moratorium on a luxury student development in a predominantly Black neighborhood and established the Gainesville Alliance for Equitable Development. She sponsored community events on broad intervention strategies for rising housing costs and unregulated development, supported by other groups and the City of Gainesville. Residents across the city supported the effort generally due to widespread concern around the impact of un-curtailed development in historic and historically Black neighborhoods.

Community advocacy efforts included neighborhood meetings, petitions, marches, and rallies. This energy transferred to the moratorium on major development, where it sustained city-wide support from people from all walks of life. More than 600 people signed on to a letter supporting the moratorium. However, community engagement and issue education were unexpectedly time-consuming and difficult; in hindsight, a full campaign would have been helpful. While residents understood the moratorium’s general impact, there was more uncertainty about the legalese of the term and how it would be enacted in specific neighborhoods versus citywide. On reflection, using common language, different messaging, and framing it more in everyday implications may have also been instructive.

Other policy solutions that the commission might have considered during the moratorium timeframe include a property tax circuit breaker; community education about predatory practices and speculation; legal assistance for renters at risk of displacement; zoning revisions; assistance with heirs properties; and funding for community members to buy, build, or renovate homes in the neighborhoods they grew up in. These solutions are intended to shift power by focusing on the city’s most marginalized residents.

The commission as a body is relatively moderate. Although the moratorium had broad support, the city attorney and city manager also remained risk averse. The city attorney used the state-level Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights Protection Act of 1995 as a reason to reject the measure, arguing that the moratorium would trigger a private property rights challenge. The city manager used selective data analysis to reject the proposal, arguing that increasing density and additional units would solve housing affordability and anti-displacement issues.

Advocates hired an attorney to represent residents and challenge the city’s decision. Walker ran for commission on a platform for equitable development, and this particular fight was part of a broader conversation about how to protect similar neighborhoods in the city. As a result, her advocacy had significant political implications for her victory when she ran for council.

In early September 2021, partly as a result of the moratorium, other torpedoed initiatives, as well as ongoing challenges with the city manager, Commissioner Johnson resigned her position to focus on community organizing. Johnson’s departure was part of a spate of resignations from Gainesville city officials following the commission’s decision to retain City Manager Lee Feldman, who had been accused of gender discrimination in the workplace.⁴ Along with Gail Johnson, the director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, the city clerk, and the city attorney—all of whom are women—resigned, with a number of them citing Feldman and issues of disrespect in the working environment, misuse of power, and a lack of commitment to equity as reasons for their departure.⁵ Though Feldman ultimately also resigned, Johnson voiced that, “power has been abused and misused. We have quickly gone from working in a low-trust environment to a no-trust environment.”⁶

Additionally, as part of her resignation statement, Johnson said: “The fact is that this next fiscal year of work will be predicated on the strategic plan. I fundamentally do not agree with the process of how we arrived at the priorities outlined in the strategic plan, or the execution of the priorities over the past year. The outsized focus on development is problematic…I want to work with people, and in environments where actions speak louder than words. I want to spend my valuable time working in spaces where my contributions and my perspective are valued, where my core values are in alignment with the people I work with, and where I can successfully spend my time working towards desperately needed systemic change.”

If this policy had passed, it would have provided a brief respite from a rapid pace of development in historically Black neighborhoods. It is not a guarantee that this would have prevented gentrification in the long term, but comprehensive municipal plans can have a significant impact on land use and zoning decisions. The city expects comprehensive plan recommendations this winter;⁷ inclusionary and exclusionary zoning are both topics connected with this work. The power of a moratorium is that it provides the time and space needed to implement equitable development policies and center the communities and voices most at risk of erasure. Those policies ensure that everyone participates in, and benefits from, new buildings, homes, businesses, and economic growth—especially low-income residents, communities of color, immigrants, and others most at risk of being left behind. Though the moratorium was ultimately voted down, the Gainesville process represents an informative co-governance case study on how moratoriums can be used to increase public engagement in housing policy formation.