Passing Housing Reform: 9 Takeaways from Gainesville

How Gainesville got to "yes" on single-family rezoning. The coalition building, compromises, and policy design that helped us - finally - get a better single family code.

For six years the City of Gainesville has been in a heated back-and-forth on single-family zoning. It has been a story of fits and starts, overstepping and accomplishing. Of elections, politicians, coalitions, and housing prices.

This blog is generally focused on talking with a local audience about hyper-local issues: road designs, zoning, bus funding. But this once I want to write for a bit broader audience because I think there’s a lot for other elected officials and advocates can learn from what we’ve been through in Gainesville over the past six years.

Importantly, I think Gainesville has been a great success on housing reform. We passed a “model” accessory dwelling unit policy in 2020. Eliminated parking minimums in 2022. Legalized the building of single-room occupancies in 2020. And, earlier this month, finally passed comprehensive single-family reform. The new single-family code eliminates the four arbitrary single-family zones we’ve had for decades and allows up to 12 units an acre across the city’s single-family zones.

Today Gainesville’s single-family zoning code is, in my humble opinion, the best in the southeast, and among the best in the United States.

Most surprisingly, we were able to pass the final rezoning not just with the support of housing advocates, but with the support of neighborhood advocacy groups that vehemently opposed previous zoning attempts.

Despite the nationwide conversation about zoning reform, from Obama at the DNC to endless NPR stories and New York Times pieces, it can be hard to get good, on-the-ground information about what cities did to get to yes.

Everyone acknowledges that reforming single-family zoning is a difficult, almost Sisyphean task. It’s also one of the most important things cities can do to help their communities be affordable, sustainable, and economically strong.

So, as the Commissioner who wrote and passed the final, comprehensive rezoning this past month, and in the spirit of wishing someone else had written an article like this for me to read before I started on this quixotic path, here are 9 takeaways from Gainesville on six years of hard, positive, difficult steps to getting a better single-family zoning code:

1.) One Step At A Time

Like many cities, Gainesville’s first instinct was to comprehensively reform our zoning all at once. Following Minneapolis’ successful Minneapolis 2040 rewrite, the Commission hired an outside consultant in 2020 who gave us a long list of potential code rewrites¹.

This is pretty standard in government: hire a consultant to bring back a list of changes and pass them. That might work for a new parks plan, but doomed the City on zoning reform. We found what Austin did with their “CodeNext” rewrite: large, omnibus rezoning proposals get massive blowback. They get pigeonholed only into their most controversial elements. They are too complicated for neighborhood groups or allies to understand and support, and they frequently die a lonely death².

So after years of failure on comprehensive zoning reform we decided to take it one at a time, picking a single topic and working to build support around it. This is partially inspired by Strong Towns “incremental” approach to reform, which I think has worked out well for us:

1. Humbly observe where people in the community struggle.

2. Ask the question: What is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address that struggle?

3. Do that thing. Do it right now.

4. Repeat.

This new approach has been a game changer. Instead of failing to build support around a complex list of large-scale changes all at once, we’ve been able to build an impressive list of successes by tackling them one at a time.

1. Passing a “model” accessory dwelling unit policy (2020)

2. Legaling single room occupancies (2020)

3. Eliminating parking minimums city-wide (2022)

4. Increasing density/Reducing minimum lot sizes (2024)

5. Allowing “cottage neighborhoods” (2024)

6. Passing inclusionary zoning (2024)

If all of these were together in one bundle they would have died, but taking them one at a time we were able to build community support and put them in the book of law.

2.) Learn from Other Communities

Back when Gainesville first started exploring single-family zoning reform in 2018 there was no roadmap. All the City knew was that housing prices were exploding and experts were unanimous that the current status quo was unsustainable.

So the first attempt out of the gate was a spectacular failure called “GNV RISE” in 2018 which allowed small-scale apartments everywhere while putting so many restrictions in place that the proposal was unlikely to ever yield much of anything. It seemed almost perfectly designed to maximize community anger while getting little housing actually built. That policy died unanimously at the City Commission, but it started a conversation.

It’s not 2018 any longer, we have a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t for increasing the supply of homes. Instead of maximizing density with tons of restrictions, we now know that the most successful cities are making it easier to do the basics.

Today, communities have a full buffet of potential reforms that have been successfully accomplished in communities all over the country:

1.) Accessory Dwelling Units
2.) Plex reforms
3.) Lot dimension reforms
4.) Minimum parking requirement reforms
5.) Transit Oriented Developments

The University of Berkeley has a great Zoning Reform Tracker where you can see what other cities have done.

Learning from other cities doesn’t mean just adopting their codes, but improving on them. Gainesville’s recent minimum lot size reform borrowed from Durham’s successful “small lot option” ordinance. But we learned from the mistakes of Durham: we didn’t limit the zoning to only urban neighborhoods and didn’t put an overly restrictive “building footprint” in.

3.) Plex Reforms Are Not the End-All-Be-All

In 2022 the City of Gainesville passed a complete elimination of single-family zoning, allowing quadplexes everywhere across the city by-right. The backlash to this was swift and intense. A local contractor was arrested for threatening to attack City Commissioners who voted yes. Business owners banned “yes” commissioners from their businesses. And in the end it all got reversed anyway: the Commission later voted to be the first city in the United States to reimplement single-family zoning after eliminating it.

These “plex reforms” have been the centerpiece of the housing reform movement since the very beginning. This is the ability to attach two or more homes together with a shared wall. It garners huge, aggressive blowback in every city, with residents concerned about protecting the character of their neighborhoods.

So it’s worth asking yourself: is the juice worth the squeeze?

There is widespread understanding that the large-lot, overly restrictive suburban-style zoning that took hold in America after World War 2 is not a sustainable model. But the form of the dwelling is only one regulation among many that were implemented during that time, and arguably it’s the least onerous. Charlie Gardner, now of the Mercatus Institute, is the one who brought me around on this issue with this post trying to define what exactly the “Single Family Home” is.

Now research by Emily Hamilton, M. Nolan Gray, and many others is showing the same thing: lot restrictions, floor area ratios, and other onerous single-family limitations are a lot more important in limiting diverse, affordable housing than “Limitations on Units” is.

That’s what we’re seeing on the ground in Gainesville as well:

Here are four new homes in Gainesville, one block from downtown, zoned in our highest density zoning category at a maximum of 12 stories and 150 units per acre. As you can see, they’re all small-lot single-family homes. This is true across our community: even in areas where multifamily is allowed, people are frequently opting to build single-family, because that’s what they want.

For all the fussing and fighting about “missing middle housing” and “small-scale multi-family”, the numbers on these types of homes are pretty underwhelming. Here are the total homes built in the United States 2023 according to the Census “Characteristics of New Housing”:

Less than 1% of the new homes being built today are in the 2-4 unit multi-family category. It is a niche housing type, one that has its place, but isn’t very popular in the United States.

Meanwhile, 25% of new homes are single-family being built on small lots (7,000 sq. ft and below), lots that were illegal across most single-family zoning in Gainesville before this change. That seemed to me to be a better use of energy. It received far more community support and, critically, a majority of commissioners voted for it.

Your mileage may vary, but I think this was the right tradeoff. Other cities have “eliminated single-family zoning” while keeping strong restrictions in place and their results have been abysmal. The goal is to get more diverse and affordable housing, not to win an argument.

4.) Get the Details Right

New Haven passed an Accessory Dwelling Unit policy in 2021. Now, three years later, not a single ADU has been built without asking for zoning relief from the City Council.

The culprit? Small, seemingly innocuous restrictions meant to alleviate neighborhood concerns during passage. New Haven mandated owner-occupied homes for any ADU, which the AARP has opposed and others have called a “poison pill” for ADU’s, as well as minimum lot sizes and other restrictions.

Gainesville, on the other hand, had 23 ADU’s built in the three years since we passed ours in 2020, with 42 permits issued. Ours was successful because we didn’t include the restrictions New Haven did. In the end, none of these allowances have caused the worst-case scenario many feared: building has been steady and incremental, with a large percentage of ADU’s owner-occupied.

The details matter a lot on zoning, and they’re not nearly as controversial as you might think. Passing an ADU policy is controversial, no doubt about it, but people are more concerned about the broad policy than the small details. So be willing to stand strong on the small details that actually gets housing built.

On the comprehensive rezoning of single-family we passed earlier this month, there were a few things that were dealbreakers for me, and I was really happy I didn’t have to compromise on any of them³:

1.) All building should be allowed by-right
2.) The policy should only give rights to homeowners, not take any away
3.) No neighborhood can be exempted
4.) Building should be made simpler, not harder

Some of the details, like the total density, I was a little more flexible on. And in the end we limited homes built on the much smaller lots, .08-.15 acres, to a maximum square footage of 1,500 sq. ft. and only one ADU. Lots of that size were illegal before this change anyway, so it didn’t impact any current homeowners, and it still increased density in our largest and lowest-density zoning categories with no restrictions.

It was still a compromise, but one I could live with.

It’s important to know on the front end what will doom your policies and what won’t, because bad policies tend to stick. New Haven has tried numerous times to remove these “poison pills” without any luck. The same is true for other early zoning reformers like Minneapolis who passed less-than-ideal policies in the murky early years of zoning reform.

Like many cities, we had to make compromises to get our policies passed, but knowing what to stand strong on, what to give, and how to make the details work will be the difference between a policy that works and one that doesn’t.

5.) Know Your Local Builders and Community

The success or failure of your zoning reforms will come down to whether anyone is willing to actually use them. You can read all about what has happened in Durham or Berkeley, but there’s nothing better than seeing it with your own two eyes in your local community.

After the reversal of single-family zoning repeal in 2023 I spent countless hours trying to find the right way forward. I picked the brain of local builders, biked around neighborhoods, and tried to understand what was being built where and why.

Your small-scale builders, in particular, are an incredible resource. Gainesville, like most towns, was built primarily by small-scale, local builders prior to the 1970’s. Today there are only a handful of builders who build one-off, infill homes. It was easy enough to get to know all of them. Habitat for Humanity is a good place to start, so are the names on new building permits.

They know the zoning code inside and out, they’re frustrated by it, and they’re the ones who will drive whether your new code is a success or not.

Much of what we passed was based on the feedback of these small-scale builders. They emphasized the need for better single-family lot dimensions. They emphasized the importance of “by-right” approval. How small regulations like lot width can cause big impacts when trying to build on infill lots.

Every city code is different, you need to know which parts of your code are the most onerous and begin tackling them today. Your local builders will happily tell you. Do you have an excessive floor area ratio? Reduce it. Are parking minimums making building new housing difficult? Eliminate them.

6.) Meet People Where They Are, Not Where You Wish They Were

The previous, failed attempts at single-family zoning reform talked a really big game. The City was going to eliminate single-family zoning, a remnant of our racist past. This would transform the city and create affordable housing in every neighborhood across our community.

This talk was counterproductive. Big talk and promises are great for political rallies and Twitter, but no one wants that for their homes and neighborhoods. People are, understandably, risk-averse about their neighborhoods, and there’s a natural status quo bias.

Even among the most aggressive of neighborhood defenders, there’s a genuine acknowledgment that housing costs are growing out of control and that our community needs to find solutions. Balancing these two things in how you talk about zoning is a big part of getting to yes.

Our approach this time around was much more focused on quality of life, incrementalism, starter homes, and how outdated our zoning code is. You can read my one pager here and I have a whole blog post about this here to get a feel for this approach.

This was a much better - and frankly more honest - way of talking about how zoning changes work. These changes are not the silver bullet for low-income housing, and you won’t see rapid change tomorrow. But over time you will see change, steadily, incrementally, and it will make you and your family’s lives better.

I would also strongly recommend reading Strong Towns articles on housing, written primarily by Daniel Herriges, about how to frame these topics and talk about them. Their focus on “traditional neighborhoods” and the history of neighborhood development being more organic is spot on and a great counter to status quo bias. Their focus on quality of life and giving families flexibility brings housing down to the personal level.

They have a new book, “Escaping the Housing Trap” that is also very good and worth checking out.

7.) Show People Something They Know

Like many cities, we love our older, pre-war neighborhoods in Gainesville. The Victorians of Duckpond and the small-lot bungalows of Pleasant Street create charming, diverse, walkable neighborhoods that are some of the most sought-after in the City.

Duckpond and Pleasant Street, our two oldest neighborhoods. They were built before Gainesville implemented modern zoning in 1958 and are good examples of the "organic, flexible" neighborhood design before strict lot dimension rules

And like most cities, we made building these charming neighborhoods illegal.

Citing these neighborhoods as the inspiration for this most recent single-family zoning update went a long way in building community support. Instead of creating a new zoning code from scratch, we decided to simply adopt an existing one from these neighborhoods: Residential Conservation. At 12 units per acre, reduced setbacks, and smaller lot widths, this urban, medium-density zoning was both flexible and familiar to many in our community.

As residents would ask questions about what this zoning means for them we had an easy answer: go for a walk. What kind of buildings will get built? Go see for yourself. Will this mean less trees along the road? Go for a walk in Pleasant Street and see all the trees yourself.

Most cities have multiple zoning categories, from urban to suburban. Taking an existing zoning gives people the peace of mind that the worst-case scenario won’t happen. In most cases it creates the exact kind of neighborhoods many people love and want to move to.

8.) Build Coalitions Early

Previous failed zoning reforms failed to build the community coalitions that help get big reforms through. Sure, there were individual people in favor of these changes, but without any community groups on board, it was hard to sustain momentum.

Inspired by the broad, diverse coalitions that California has used to pass statewide reforms, I worked early to try to build a coalition that would consistently advocate for proposed changes.

In the end our local realtors' group, GACAR, and a progressive labor organization, the Alachua County Labor Coalition, came out in favor. Along with the newly created YIMBY group “Gainesville is for People”, they were central to how this proposal passed. They emailed, showed up to meetings, and let politicians know there is support in favor of these changes.

But it was a lot of work: for every organization that officially came out in favor I spent many hours trying to convince others that didn’t. I reached out to every local group that supported the changes in California: labor groups, builders groups, realtors, the AARP, Habitat for Humanity, and environmental groups. Most said no, but some said yes.

It was also critical that this be led by an elected official who is willing to go out on a limb and spend political capital on this issue. Previous attempts at zoning reform leaned heavily on city planners to do this community work. That is fine for most rezoning, but this is a totally different thing than a petition for a new building: it’s about finding solutions to quality of life problems through the tools the City has. That’s the job of a local elected official.

It’s a lot of work, but local politics is about building support and coalitions, one conversation at a time.

7.) Don’t Write Anybody Off

When this started I wouldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that our neighborhood preservation group, Gainesville Neighborhood Voices, would support reforming single-family zoning. They were joined by five city commissioners, most of whom had run for office opposing zoning reform.

If we had shunned these groups, villainized them, or talked down to them it never would have happened. And in the end it was needed: one of the “yes” votes didn’t show up the day of the vote, so to get a majority I needed to get votes from people who were skeptical of the changes to come out in favor.

They did, thanks to many hours of working with them, and a willingness from these groups to try to find a common middle ground to bring our community together. Also, crucially, me and others were willing to give in on some key demands they were asking for, and their demands were reasonable.

9.) Failure is Okay, Do the Work

Far and away the most important aspect of passing zoning reform was years of big failures followed by small successes. After six years of heated community discussion and two failed comprehensive zoning reforms, everyone was interested in finding some kind of compromise.

The neighborhood groups were ready to put the fighting behind them, the pro-housing advocates wanted to see a law passed, and everyone else was simply tired of the endless fighting. By the time my lot size reforms came forward it was seen as what it was - a compromise.

But if I had proposed this exact same compromise six years earlier it would have been villainized. Many politicians, planners, and advocates had to try and fail to get to “yes” before we could create a path.

So my final piece of advice is just to try. The places that are being successful now - Austin, Berkeley, Arlington, etc. - fought for years over potential changes before coming to a solution. Creating a better city is like growing a tree - the best time to start was five years ago, the next best time is today.

1. I was not on the Commission at the time, I joined in January 2023 and worked exclusively on the lot size changes. I use “we” just as shorthand for the Commission, but I wasn’t on it.

2. To be fair, it was also a very aggressive zoning code, the least restrictive single-family zoning code in the US that I could find. It allowed quadplexes by-right everywhere in the city, no floor area ratio, 2 ADU’s, very small minimum lot sizes, and reduced setbacks. Only St. Paul, Minnesota has a code with this few restrictions, and not even theirs went as far as Gainesville’s did (duplex by-right in St. Paul vs quadruples in Gainesville). The blowback was a genuine response to a very aggressive policy.

3. Another shout out to Strong Towns who make this a centerpiece of their “incremental development” framework. 1. No neighborhood can be exempt from change. 2. No neighborhood should experience sudden, radical change.