City of Gainesville launches interactive map to identify and track affordable housing
Press release from City of Gainesville
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The City of Gainesville has launched a new online tool for the public to visualize previously unavailable housing information in neighborhoods across the community. The Affordable Housing Resources Interactive Map is designed as a quick and simple way to keep an eye on the city’s housing data in real time.
This application was developed in response to a request from the Gainesville City Commission for a one-stop shop where neighbors and policymakers can gain a nuanced understanding of Gainesville’s housing situation. By accessing a user-friendly dashboard, visitors can review information collected from projects with start dates going back two years through the present day. The map provides a dynamic, changing view of current developments, funded housing programs, and other resources that play a pivotal role in Gainesville’s housing market.
“This is one of the methods we are using to support strategies for affordable housing in Gainesville,” said City Manager Cynthia W. Curry. “With this dashboard, neighbors can track the initiatives we’ve put in place. The City is directing $12.3 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to expand affordable housing. This dashboard gives insight into our success rate as we work to increase that availability.”
Through a combination of geographic points and navigation menus, users can click on specific locations or select fields that overlay new elements such as ongoing construction, public schools, City Commission districts, Regional Transit System (RTS) routes, and grocery stores.
Built entirely in-house by staff from the Department of Sustainable Development and the Office of Management & Budget, the Affordable Housing Resources Interactive Map was made possible with information provided by the City of Gainesville’s Department of Housing & Community Development, Transportation Department, Alachua County Growth Management, and the Gainesville Housing Authority.
To remain timely, the map will continue to grow and evolve as the City’s housing inventory changes. Users can find the Affordable Housing Resources interactive Map online. It will be housed permanently on the City’s website with the other interactive maps the City publishes.
Have they defined “affordable” yet? I didn’t see one in the story.
They also need to make sure they include the estimated utilities.
Luckily our “substandard” neighborhood is not a dot on the map. Bad stuff happens in neighborhoods that are those dots.
According to sources translating political euphemisms into common language, “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines affordable housing as housing where the occupant is paying 30% or less of the gross income on total housing, including utilities.”
Therefore, ‘Department of Sustainable Development,’ according to the translation, is ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’
One might ask, how does a deficit spending and subsidies accomplish that noble goal?
The translators are stumped and Atlas still shrugs.
City of Gainesville employees and political hacks; PLEASE DEFINE AFFORDABLE HOUSING as you use the term.
The City of Gainesville continues to spend millions of dollars on social programs while failing to provide (1) safety from continue violent crimes and (2) infrastructure in the form of good roads. This is DESPITE the extra taxes that are levied on the citizens. Gainesville is really a mess.
I’m very concerned about affordable housing in our area, but the way to fix that in my mind is to get expensive red tape, high property taxes, and unaffordable utilities fixed. Not increase the tax burden by supplying gov’t funded housing.
That will just increase the problems. Gov’t is the most expensive way to provide housing, with the worst crime stats!
You are correct and SHOULD be a concerned mom if living in the Gainesville area. Spending MORE money on government supplied housing is not what our local “leaders” should be doing.
Public housing has shown to be a crime incubator!
There is an easier way to create such a map. Take a county map, not a limited Gainesville map (lots of stuff happens in the county just over the GNV city limits), and put a red dot on the map for every murder, shooting, and drive by shooting (even if no one was hit) in the past 5 years. The solid red areas have the lowest priced housing. Done.
Affordable housing? You mean for those who don’t have to pay full freight with the highest utility costs & property taxes (and…going up) on the State? The tracking map is mostly a map of subsidized (by taxpayers) housing
City should add GIS layer(s) for gun shootings and other crimes. To also assist decision on cheap housing options.