Gainesville City Commission selects inaugural Downtown Advisory Board, changes requirements for single-room occupancy residences, passes resolution asking UF to “not interfere” with PK Yonge’s admissions process
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – During the afternoon session of the June 6 Gainesville City Commission meeting, the Commission selected the inaugural members of the Downtown Advisory Board, passed an ordinance on first reading to change the requirements for single-room-occupancy buildings, and unanimously passed a resolution asking UF to maintain the current admissions process at P.K. Yonge, its laboratory school.
Downtown Advisory Board
There were 16 applicants for the new seven-member advisory board: Richard Allen, Adam Bass, Avery Bender, Timothy Blakemore, James Blythe, Dillon Boatner, Teresa Callen, Marley Concha, Jason Hurst, Timothy Hutchens, Jacob Ihde, Anthony Lyons, Linda McGurn, Rebecca Nagy, Sara Puyana, and Trevor Wise.
The Commission gave each applicant the opportunity to introduce themselves, then filled out a ballot with their selections.
On the first ballot, Allen, Callen, and McGurn each received five votes, so Commissioners decided to place them on the board with the longest terms (three years). Ihde, Lyons, and Puyana all had four votes, and Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut made a motion to appoint Ihde and Lyons to the two two-year terms. Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker seconded the motion, which passed 6-1, with Commissioner Casey Willits in dissent.
Since that left Puyana with four votes and five applicants with three votes, they decided to do a second ballot. After the votes had been tallied, Willits made a motion to appoint Allen, Callen, and McGurn to the three-year terms and Sara Puyana and Timothy Hutchens to the one-year terms. Commissioner Reina Saco seconded the motion, and the motion passed unanimously.
Full list of board members:
- Richard Allen
- Teresa Callen
- Timothy Hutchens
- Jacob Ihde
- Anthony Lyons
- Linda McGurn
- Sara Puyana
Single-room occupancy residences
The ordinance to revise requirements for single-room occupancy (SRO) residences removed a requirement to have 1,000 feet between single-room occupancies, a requirement that they be built within a quarter mile of public transit, and a requirement to include laundry facilities.
The ordinance also removed a requirement for on-site management 24 hours a day, changing it to on-call management services, and removed a requirement to have one restroom per floor if each unit has its own restroom. A staff member said the City had received feedback from a developer that the 24-hour on-site management requirement was “prohibitive.”
Single-room occupancy properties consist of multiple single-room dwellings that are occupied by no more than one family per room; they typically have shared restroom and kitchen facilities.
SRO requirements were first passed in September 2020 in an attempt to address affordability issues, but there was not much response, and developers told staff that the requirements were difficult and posed obstacles to the development of SRO units.
Plan Board recommended more bathrooms
The City Plan Board had previously approved the new requirements with the condition that one bathroom be provided for every four units; the current ordinance requires at least one private bathroom with a lock, shower, toilet, and sink per floor. The new ordinance would remove that requirement if the units have private bathrooms, and the version of the ordinance recommended by staff did not include the City Plan Board recommendation for one bathroom for every four units.
Saco said she was inclined “to go against the Plan Board’s recommendation on this” because “our goal was [to] take away as many of these cost-prohibitive conditions [as possible]… I want to give this type of residence the most flexibility to start because I don’t think we have one yet.”
Commissioner Bryan Eastman agreed, “If we actually do start seeing SROs coming in, which may not actually happen,… we can come back and… start rejiggering some of the design standards on those. But as it stands, I think we need to start really pushing to see what we can get in there… We have lost this really important, unique housing type that was more affordable than everyone having their own bathroom within an apartment, which is getting out of reach.”
Willits said, “Four to one is a pretty good ratio for one toilet, you know, it’s not a human rights violation to share a toilet.” But, he said, having a single locked bathroom on a floor is “a lot different” because “one person can take that up.” He preferred the Plan Board’s “basic level of one for four rooms.”
Saco made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation (one private bathroom per floor), and Eastman seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously on a roll-call vote. The ordinance will be considered a second time at a future meeting.
P.K. Yonge resolution
During the evening session, the Commission took up a resolution that had been added to the agenda that morning by Chestnut. Chestnut said the resolution was “precipitated by a request from our neighbor Kim Popejoy, who came to speak to us about P.K. Yonge and about if we would move forward in asking the University Board of Trustees and the administration to maintain the current admission process at P.K. Yonge. P.K. Yonge is ranked number three out of non-selective high schools in the state. It is currently designed to reflect the population diversity of the state of Florida… P.K. Yonge’s mission is to design, test, and disseminate innovations in education through serving a diverse K-12 community.”
Chestnut made a motion to “ask the Mayor and the Clerk to provide a certified copy of this resolution to the University of Florida Board of Trustees Chair [Mori Hosseini], the University of Florida President Ben Sasse, University of Florida Vice President Penny Schwinn, and University of Florida Professor of Law and Faculty Senate Chair Danaya Wright.” Duncan-Walker seconded the motion.
After clarifying that the change opposed by Chestnut would make admissions competitive for grades 9-12, Willits said, “I definitely support this because it’s such a jewel to have it as research available for everybody… I would hate to see them lose that important part of their mission.”
Mayor Harvey Ward added, “Anybody who’s been around Gainesville very long knows that activating the P.K. alumni base may not have been the best decision for some of these folks. As an Eastside grad, I’ve always been impressed and a little bit in awe of the tight-knit alumni at P.K. If you attended P.K. at any time in your academic career, you’re part of that family, and that has always been very impressive to me. Folks who aren’t part of it really don’t get it… It is intentionally representative of the people of Florida and the diversity of the people of Florida and has been such an asset to this community and to the world… So I’m 100% supportive.”
The resolution was approved unanimously on a roll-call vote.
For the SROs, will they allow modular units stacked in a steel framed multi family building? It may be more doable to hire modular manufacturers in that industry, make efficiencies and deliver them on trucks, stacking into steel framed floors. That’s how Disney built the Contemporary Hotel, which is still standing.
Most important though is having some SROs owner-occupied and governed by HOA rules, and crimewatch residential security.
If you really want more low income rentals, you better put walls and gated security around them.
I’m hoping UF pays as much attention to the Commission as the Commission gave to GRU ratepayers and residents during the past several years.
UF can exist without Gainesville, Gainesville will cease to exist without UF. Run along little Harvey, find someone else to play with.
Putting aside your weird hatred of our hometown – can’t you leave, or are you on house arrest or something? – in this case UF can’t run PK without Gainesville kids, that is if they want any semblance of a laboratory school for their Dept of Education. One hopes – especially those (unlike you) loyal to both sides – that both sides are listening to the other.
Putting aside our obvious differences of opinions regarding the continued incompetence of Gainesville leadership, if you don’t like my comments – don’t read them. It’s kind of like changing the channel on a television, if you don’t like the programming, change the channel.
With all of your accomplishments and knowledge, I’m sure you can figure out the buttons.
If you think city leaders have been listening, you’re more indoctrinated than I thought you to be.
It’s not my reading your opinions I object to, but others reading them without my corrections.
Let me help with your memory.
You’ve stated in the past that without UF, Gainesville wouldn’t be here. Without UF, employment and amenities wouldn’t be here. I just reminded people and now you’re upset about it.
Perhaps you should put a little more thought into reality instead of the dreamworld you like to live in.
That’s about the only correction needed if you haven’t noticed.
Jazzman – what would we do without you? 🙄
So Chestnuts neighbor complained and here we are now with the Commission interfering with admissions at P.K. Young. Just let U.F. take care of that school we don’t need Wards Commission to fix something that isn’t broken.
It’s laughable that the Gainesville City Commission believes the University of Florida cares about what they think.
Did PKY screen applicants before putting them in a lottery system? Hopefully they do. If so, then why oppose UF screening even further, for a top-10 high school goal, isn’t that worthy?
The other public schools are already inclusive, so why not have one that’s exclusive, like the AP and IB, gifted or magnet programs already are in other public schools?
The local Dem elites are playing politics in an election year as usual, while being hypocritical the same time 💩👹👺👿🤡D
PK is a laboratory school used by UF’s Education Dept for study and research, unlike the others.
I know, but do they screen applicants before the lottery draws? TYIA
Are you mad you wouldn’t have gotten in, Jazzman? “No dummies need apply.”
“passes resolution asking UF to “not interfere” with PK Yonge’s admissions process”.
The commissioners want to control everything to assure the so called ‘equity’ for their culturally trained disruptors to dilute the results.
Reading the full resolution and listening to the city commission, the theme repeated over and over is that UF’s P.K. Yonge school is supposed to represent the racial population of Florida. The city commission wants UF not to “interfere” with the university’s own program by changing the selection process to be merit based for grade 9-12.
Demographics of the school and the state are below:
P.K. Yonge demographics (US News website)
42.6% White
24.4% Black or African American
21.3% Hispanic/Latino
State of Florida demographics (US Census, 2020)
51.5% White
14.5% Black or African American
26.5% Hispanic/Latino
Findings:
1. White students are moderately underrepresented in this program vs the state population (0.83x what you would expect)
2. Black students are significantly overrepresented (1.68x)
3. Hispanic students are moderately underrepresented. (0.80x)
Let’s say the quiet part out loud: Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut’s self-identified racial demographic (Black or African American) is significantly overrepresented–nearly twice as high as it should be statistically–and she does not want any changes made to correct this disparity and reduce the benefit to her own racial in-group.
Sounds kind of racist to me (so naturally Ward and Eastman are on board with it).