Goldstein: Commissioner Eastman made false statements during discussion on minimum lot sizes
Letter to the editor
City Commissioner Bryan Eastman, elected from a single Gainesville district, presented false data, documents, and misinformation in an effort to influence the vote of the city commission for a highly consequential and controversial action affecting every resident and citizen in the city. It effectively puts the city on sale for rent-by-the-room development in every residential district.
Eastman’s motion supporting rent-by-the-room development everywhere passed by one vote on July 18, 2024. Mayor Harvey Ward stated that Eastman influenced his support to open all residential areas. He said that Eastman began asking for his support and presenting information over the preceding two years. It is true that rent-by-the-room markets are sought after by investors, but Gainesville, Florida now goes further than any U.S. city by offering the entire city for sale to investors by right.
The information advanced by Eastman assures no affordable housing whatsoever. The extreme proposal is, at best, theoretical, but he represented it as evidence worthy of the vote of the city commission. The numerous unproven and unsupported assertions provided to the city commission provided the rationale to vote for the one-of-a-kind proposal. To provide a sense of urgency for the vote, Eastman stated falsely that the average cost of a home in Gainesville was (more than or above) $400,000. This dramatic assertion was and is false.
https://www.redfin.com/city/6487/FL/Gainesville/housing-market (lowest average 260,000)
https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/fl/gainesville (highest average 307,050)
Eastman also presented and referred to supporting documents that contain meaningfully false and unsupportable conclusions. Private rental investors supported Eastman’s assertions and will be able to benefit financially from the 4-3 decision.
If the action is allowed to stand, Gainesville will become the first U.S. city to openly market itself for sale to the lucrative worldwide rent-by-the-room marketplace, and the results will be visible everywhere upon final passage.
https://marinpost.org/blog/2021/9/13/the-housing-crisis-propaganda-machine
Mark Kane Goldstein, Gainesville
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Assertions of facts in letters are similarly the responsibility of the author. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
That’s what Eastman does. He is so full of himself he thinks G’ville is the same size and type of city as NYC and Houston. He will burn the city to the ground trying to accomplish his goal of being something we are not, while pushing out our own people. Ultimately under his ideology Gville will be nothing more than student housing with no more trees, no more historic neighborhoods, no more generational wealth and people fleeing to safer more affordable ground
No! Say it isn’t true. Everything out of a this Libs mouth is filled with lies & deception.
And this surprises who?
The lemmings will still support and defend him, all the way over the cliff.
See Mark, nothing has changed since you were a commissioner.
Bumpkin:
things have got way worse since mark was a commissioner.
We got vagrants galore and no street parking and gentrification of neighborhoods…
I think homeowners have had the right to rent by the room already. I know I did for 35 years, until my elderly parents moved in. The city had a 3-unrelated person limit until they went to unlimited a few years ago.
The demand for single person per room renters (like student leases) is also a demand for SROs, single room apts, or better yet condos owned by the resident. We need THOSE more than just rentals.
It’s still legal for small time landlords to rent granny suites. Some just don’t want corporate landlords competing with them.
If you really wanna sock it to investors, then build owner-occupied efficiency units. That would solve several social problems, too. 🇺🇸🤑
I purchased my home and it’s my homestead in a SFR neighborhood close to UF…
Thank you Mr. Goldstein for protecting our single family neighborhoods.
The no more than 3 unrelated people and the rental permit for SFR houses was a good idea.
My yard gets a lot of beer cans, red cups, & beer bottles strewn
Around when the students have their frat type parties sometimes and have to call the police…we still need the party patrol.
Parking is no longer enforced it seems in the neighborhood and there were campers with outta state tags musical chairing with the parking…the street is not a campsite!
We got some vagrants under the 8th Ave bridge and a crazy guy that was featured in the AC the other day living in the woods there crapping things up.
The GNVCC needs to protect SFR
Neighborhoods from these greedy rental investors who are whoring up our neighborhoods for $…
We like it quiet, clean, & green!
Thank you Mark for all your years of public service.
UF, Inc was supposedly capping enrollment at about 45k about a decade + ago. They’re at 60,750 now and no announced cap that I have heard. In the meantime, and with a lot of land, they have done little to add housing to keep up with this demand and even tore down Corry Village which housed married students with kids. This is an area that UF and the City should be working on together and rationally. There are still savable neighborhoods in somewhat close proximity to campus, but under pressure, and others not fit for non-student living. Expanding these areas is not providing affordable housing, it’s providing a subsidy to UF and larger adult deserts.
Eastman seems to be misleading with his $400,000 figure. He used average where the typical info is median price. This means half of the properties sold for less than these median numbers. Averages are inflated by the larger houses sold. Starter homes are not sold at the median or average prices, they are at much lower prices as a starter home.
Eastman never lets the facts interfere with his messaging- which is superb. People like him have never created housing and are ignorant about the realities. The price of materials, labor and regulations continue to rise much faster than the price of land. Smaller lot sizes will have little to no impact on affordability. The smaller the unit, the more the rent is PER SQUARE FOOT. The more people per unit, the more affordable the unit becomes IF everyone contributes financially. The cost spread between a room with shared kitchen and bath vs. a private small apartment continues to increase.