Gainesville is for People endorses candidates in City and County Commission races ahead of Aug. 18 election
Press release from Gainesville is for People
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With the Gainesville metro area on track to add tens of thousands of new residents in the coming years, a local pro-housing group is betting its endorsement on the candidates it believes will meet that growth with more homes rather than higher rents.
Gainesville is for People announced today that its members have endorsed candidates in five City and County Commission races on the August 18 ballot. The endorsements cap a process that began weeks earlier, when candidates across the area submitted written questionnaires and then faced voters directly at a public forum on July 13th. In the days that followed, the group’s members weighed each candidate’s answers and platform and voted race by race, with a majority required to win the group’s backing.
The endorsed candidates are:
- Mayor: Harvey Ward Jr.
- City Commission, District 2: Nathan Crabbe
- City Commission, District 3: Casey Willits
- County Commission, District 2: Donna Bradbrook
- County Commission, District 4: Ken Cornell
For a group focused on housing, the stakes of these particular races are hard to overstate. The University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research projects the Gainesville metro area could add close to 140,000 residents by 2050 at the high end of its range, and the commissioners elected this fall will help decide whether that growth produces homes people can afford or prices longtime residents out.
“These are the candidates our members trust to actually get homes built,” said Jason Sanchez of Gainesville is for People. “Gainesville is growing whether we plan for it or not, and the difference between a city people can afford and one they get priced out of comes down to who’s making these decisions. We’re proud to stand behind people who take that seriously.”
“The group evaluated candidates on a clear set of housing priorities: expanding housing choices, legalizing more homes near transit and jobs, cutting the permitting delays that slow construction, and getting more housing built in the urban area to help stop sprawl. Those are the yardsticks,” Sanchez said, “that separated the candidates members chose to endorse from the rest of the field.”
ABOUT GAINESVILLE IS FOR PEOPLE
Gainesville is for People is the local chapter of YIMBY Action, a national network of pro-housing advocates working for more inclusive housing policies. The chapter advocates for research-backed policies that increase the supply of housing at every level, market-rate and subsidized alike, and envisions a Gainesville where every resident has access to a safe, affordable home near jobs, services, and opportunity. Learn more at gainesvilleisforpeople.org.
Hahahaha… If Harvey Ward and Casey Willits and Ken Cornell could pass policies that make housing more affordable, housing would already be less expensive, wouldn’t it?
I guess logic is not the strong suit of Gville is for people.
Nor its voters. Then again—common sense isn’t either.
Thanks for reminding people that the same commissioners have been sitting on the dais for years clamoring about affordable housing but have done little to nothing to correct the situation—unless you count buying old hotels or long-term leases of City property. Raising special assessments and other special fees hasn’t helped either.
Maybe the voters will have done a better job of educating themselves this time around.
140,000 MORE people by 2050? And we currently don’t have enough water to support the present population?
Stop the madness! Stop “rubber-stamping” approval of unbridled development!
For sure! Also, remember that Byron Donalds is in the pocket of developers.
With the ideologies some of these candidates/elected officials have, 20,000 of those may be homeless.
You think we see lots of trash and panhandlers now—wait until that new population comes to town.
The city and county commissioners are all grifters and are profiting from each and every new development, apartment complex, etc.
We are not going to get different results by voting for the same people.
Based on the candidates they sport I have a mental picture of what these idiots look like in this group
Ah! A press release we’re allowed to comment on.
“Gainesville is for people”? …never heard of them…
Stop 🛑 right there! …
I need all I need to know!
“ a local pro-housing group” = a local pro-commi group…
use this to vote accordingly.
They only represent a tiny, but vocal portion of the population.
🤡👹👿
Any of these nimrods have fixing the roads as a priority? I thought so….
Building permits Alachua County.
• Pre-2008 boom: ~1,400–1,950/year
• Crashed hard in the Great Recession: bottomed at 444 units in 2011
. Slow recovery through the 2010s, then a surge post-2020, peaking at 3,336 permits in 2025 — the highest in the 20-year window
The story they tell together: new construction (permits) has actually outpaced any period in the last 20 years, but active resale listings only recently recovered from a historic pandemic-era low. That combination — lots of new building, but still-thin resale inventory until 2025 — is consistent with a market where existing homeowners held onto low mortgage rates and stayed put, while new construction did most of the work adding supply.
Housing is complicated…more is only part of a solution. Unintended consequences of unbridled permitting will ruin our community.