Gainesville City Commission hears update on roads, discusses proposed regulations for valet parking, and approves scattered-site option for affordable housing

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the July 25 General Policy Committee (GPC) meeting, the Gainesville City Commission heard an update on roads, discussed a future project to resurface NE 9th Street, discussed proposed valet parking regulations, and approved a scattered-site strategy for using infrastructure surtax funds for affordable housing.

Roads update

Public Works Director Brian Singleton discussed the overall pavement condition of the City’s roads, concluding that the backlog (the amount of funds needed to bring all roads up to excellent condition) was estimated at $79 million in 2021 and is probably around $108 million now. He said the funding target should be $5.4 to $7.2 million per year, but historically only about $1.3 to $3 million has been allocated, leading to a growing backlog. 

Singleton said the City has some funds built up from the Solid Waste Fee and General Fund, so they plan to treat 25.5 miles of road this year. Specific street segments for each quadrant of the city can be found on slides 31-34 of this presentation.

NE 9th Street

The City plans to resurface NE 9th Street between East University Avenue and NE 23rd Avenue, and staff recommended removing on-street parking spaces to add buffered six-foot bike lanes and extending the bike lanes across intersections. The proposed changes are shown below, and construction is planned for the spring of 2026, with completion in the spring of 2027 at an estimated cost of $5.2 million, with $2.33 million coming from an Alachua County Wild Spaces and Public Places grant.

Commissioner Bryan Eastman made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation with the modification that the bike lanes be protected wherever possible, and Commissioner Casey Willits seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Valet parking regulations

The proposed regulations would require valet operators to preserve the safe and efficient movement of vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists and maintain access to utilities, unimpeded travel lanes, unimpeded ADA access, and unimpeded access to other businesses in the area. Valet operators would have to establish a ramping area (a minimum of three and maximum of five parking spaces), and no parking would be allowed outside of the ramping area except for storage of vehicles in an approved location. Valet operators would require a permit and would pay the City a fee based on the number of spaces used and the meter rate for the area.

A City staff member told the Commission, “We currently have valet services in the downtown area that operate through the shared use of 15-minute on-street parking spaces on Southeast First Street and Southeast First Avenue. The operation is currently not regulated, and it can be problematic at times due to the competing needs for the use of curb space, disruptions to flow, traffic conflicts with pedestrians, and also due to the difficulty of enforcing the 15-minute parking spaces.” 

The regulations would apply city-wide and allow for temporary valet parking operations and services related to special events. Enforcement would be primarily handled by Code Enforcement, with the assistance of parking enforcement officers and police officers. 

The staff member said the proposed regulations had been shared with the stakeholders in late May or June, and “there were no major issues raised.” In response to a question from Commissioner Reina Saco, she said staff had not held meetings with business owners but had “shared a copy of the proposed regulations with the hotels in the Go Downtown group” and had distributed a survey.

Saco was concerned that valet operators would claim a large percentage of the parking spots in the downtown area, and she supported limiting the number of permits awarded each year.

During public comment, four employees of the Hyatt Place Hotel downtown said they just found about this a few days ago, and they opposed the regulations; the hotel runs its own valet service that allows customers to load or unload their luggage and then have their car moved to a parking lot. One speaker said the only time traffic gets backed up is when there is a truck unloading in the street. Speakers said it was “a solution looking for a problem” and that they would be happy to work with City staff, as a business that is familiar with the peak hours and the issues around valet parking in the downtown area. The valet manager at the hotel said the biggest issue is enforcement of the 15-minute parking spaces because sometimes cars are parked there for hours at a time.

A representative from Go Downtown said that when they surveyed downtown business owners (only three businesses operate valet services), the businesses were mostly concerned with how to report issues if the ordinance is passed.

Commissioner Ed Book said he didn’t support adding a valet ordinance when the City is about to make a big change in downtown parking. He made a motion to refer the ordinance to the new Downtown Advisory Board. Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut quickly seconded the motion.

Mayor Harvey Ward reminded the board that the staff’s recommendation was to hear the presentation and ask questions, not to vote on the policy.

Eastman, Saco, and Willits wanted staff to keep working on the ordinance while the Downtown Advisory Board solicits feedback from downtown businesses, and they emphasized that they didn’t want the ordinance to “stall” at that board. Chief Operating Officer Andrew Persons said the next board meeting is August 6, so staff could discuss the issue with the board at that meeting. 

Ward said staff had brought the issue to a GPC meeting “so that we can have this very sort of conversation. It is not a final policy to be passed. It is not an ordinance. It’s a discussion about where to go from here. I expect this will have multiple iterations… We can expect it to be back by the end of August, but that’s not going to be the final thing. I mean, we’re going to do this again. We do need – we have grown to the point as a community where we need a policy for valets… Sometime in the not too distant future, I do hope that we get to that point where we can provide certainty for the people who are trying to use downtown.”

Book’s motion passed unanimously.

Disposal of RTS property

The next item was a request from staff that the Commission approve sending a letter to the Federal Transit Administration, requesting approval to dispose of six parcels that make up the original RTS property located at 100 SE 10th Avenue; the City is planning to sell two of the parcels to The Knot climbing gym.

Chestnut made a motion to approve the staff’s recommendation to send the letter, and there were multiple seconds. The motion passed unanimously, with Saco absent. 

Scattered-site strategy for affordable housing

The City had previously pledged to use 10% of their infrastructure surtax allocation for affordable housing, about $870,000 per year or $8.7 million over the 10-year span of the surtax. By statute, the funds can only be used to purchase vacant and improved property; at least 30% of the total units of a development must be set aside for households at 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI). 

Persons said there were two potential paths for allocating the funds: a scattered-site approach and a large acquisition. The City could purchase properties that already have multifamily residential buildings, and Persons said the County’s purchase and conversion of motels would be an example of that approach. He said the downside of that is that the City would need to issue bonds to get enough money up front to purchase a large piece of land, and then they would need to identify other sources of funds to rehabilitate the property.

Both options would require a housing partner to manage and maintain the properties. The purchase of vacant land under a scattered-site approach, which would involve mainly single-family homes and duplexes, would also need a partner to build affordable housing while the City maintains ownership of the land. Another option would be to purchase existing home or duplexes, and the money the surtax brings in every year could be used to purchase a couple of those properties per year; however, that would also entail more administrative costs because there would be more small real estate transactions instead of a few larger ones.

Persons said the staff’s recommendation was to move forward with the scattered-site approach but maintain the flexibility to move quickly if they have “a really great opportunity” to purchase a larger site.

Saco said she supported the recommendation, and Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker said she did, too, but she wanted staff to be “mindful of concentrating poverty.”

Persons responded that the scattered-site approach allows for “more distributed affordable housing.” In response to a question from Willits, Persons clarified that the infrastructure surtax can be used to buy land, whether improved or not, but it can’t be used to construct new buildings or renovate existing buildings; he said because of that, staff was hoping to buy property with a home on it and find other funds to renovate it.

Willits asked whether the City could buy a house from someone who is “in trouble, don’t have much equity or whatever” and then allow the former homeowner to stay in the home as the “client of our housing agency.” Persons responded, “Everything is possible, right?” Willits said, “I think this is good. I think we’re onto something.”

Eastman said he wanted the City to “expand out the total supply” of housing, and he believed this plan could help an organization like Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry (which runs GRACE Marketplace) find permanent supportive housing for its clients.

Eastman said, “I think that’s a really good use of this, particularly if we’re looking at high-opportunity areas, giving folks access to different schools in different parts of town and to different neighborhoods that we don’t normally – to Commissioner Duncan-Walker’s point – where we don’t tend to put affordable housing – I think that that is ideal.”

Book said he is always concerned about the City being “in competition with private enterprise,” and he asked Persons whether the City had previously given surplus properties to developers for affordable housing. Persons said the City’s real estate policy prioritizes using surplus properties for affordable housing, but the acquisition of those properties tends to be “completely random” and “sometimes they’re buildable, sometimes they’re not.”

Book also questioned the City’s ability to manage residential properties, and Persons said that’s why the recommendation is to partner with property management organizations. Book said that with the City in a “very difficult financial position,” they might be better off identifying properties that may be suitable for affordable housing and then “using the programs that we already have to… get those in the hands of private enterprise.” Persons clarified that the surtax funds can only be used for acquisition, and the properties cannot be given away. 

Ward: “We are just now developing the kind of traditional municipal housing department that bigger cities have”

Ward said most funding sources for housing come with a lot of restrictions, “so what I’m trying to keep an eye out for and to try to work on as we move forward, is finding that unrestricted source of revenue for housing… We are just now developing the kind of traditional municipal housing department that bigger cities have, because a city our size traditionally doesn’t have capacity to deliver the kind of housing that we are starting to consider… $8.7 million to buy land is different than $8.7 million to build housing… What we want our housing department to look like is a unrestricted source of revenue for housing, so that if a great opportunity comes up, … we can actually take advantage of that and structure it in a way that is possible instead of saying, ‘Well, partner, this is the only way that our funding can fit into your capital stack.’… We really need to focus on finding that [unrestricted source of funds] as we move forward because this isn’t it… I hope we can all focus, going forward, for the next several years, on finding that golden goose, that revenue opportunity that doesn’t require us to make it hard for builders to work with us.”

Book said he thought the City would probably benefit from slowing down after putting “so many initiatives in place over the last… 12 to 24 months related to affordable housing” and being “a little more deliberate and seeing what happens over the next 12 months – how many units have been built? What’s the rental market? Who is coming off the waiting list?” He said he was concerned that the City could have “collateral problems on the back end with vacancy… I do worry about us getting into a business that… we’re just never going to do as well as the private sector.”

Saco made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation, and there were multiple seconds. The motion passed unanimously.