Gainesville Housing Authority breaks ground on new single-family home with two ADUs

And GRU is paying for it.

And how much is all of this going to cost?

Housing becomes more affordable as the supply increases — from more people fleeing said areas. The County just recently said there’s enough supply of gov’t-defined “affordable housing” — but does it distinguish between rented or mortgaged?
We need more owner-occupied, affordable housing for single adults, not “couples” with delinquent offspring from different fathers, ruining neighborhoods. There’s already TOO MUCH of the latter.

ACLUSPLCDNC 💩👺👹👿🤡

A few points about the press-release version touting the city’s ill-begotten ADU ordinance of 2020 and GHA.

GHA demolished the house that was there, so the net gain is two small rental-only units, at a cost of demolition + new construction.

More than 60% of houses in Gainesville were built before 1980 and the existing housing stock is an asset that needs to be preserved (Shimberg Center 2019). Saying GHA housing is 45-50 years old is not a reason to demolish units, but some at the city approve of demolition by neglect anyway.

The city and GHA have demolished many apartments, displacing hundreds of tenants with low incomes, and replaced them with units for people with more income than half the households in the area. There’s no shortage of rentals for that income level, and Gainesville has a fairly high vacancy rate plus unused multifamily zoning to last decades to come. Policies like this are based on theory rather than real-world needs assessment and cost-benefit analysis.

Unlike duplexes, ADUs can’t be sold separately without legal maneuvering. No homeownership is required. The uncertain eventual ROI on ADUs puts them out of reach of most homeowners even if they want to be landlords. Cost analyses show that the time, money, permitting, and all is better spent on, say, 20-unit apartment complexes.

The city agreed to pay an architect a Lot of money for off-the-shelf ADU plans to benefit those who can afford to build them. There’s more to that story too, but I’ll stop here. Thank you, Jennifer, for keeping this public forum open and for all your reporting and hard work.