Citizens, leaders gather to rally against city's plan to eliminate exclusionary zoning

A diverse group of residents and community leaders filled a church in a historically Black neighborhood Wednesday afternoon to protest a controversial zoning and land-use proposal.

Gainesville Neighborhood Voices, Inc., locals and church leaders came together at the Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church in Porter’s Quarters, for a press conference and rally to oppose the city commission’s proposed elimination of single-family zoning, also commonly known as exclusionary zoning.

If approved at Thursday's commission meeting, Gainesville would become the first in the state to adopt the city-wide change.

“Right now our immediate threat is to deal with the threat of the vote tomorrow night,” said GNVoices President Casey Fitzgerald.

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GNVoices is a newly incorporated nonprofit organization, created, primarily, to influence the outcome of the city commission’s upcoming vote that could eliminate exclusionary zoning city-wide.

With four of the seven commissioners, including the mayor, in favor of the change, the commission is poised to eliminate exclusionary zoning, or so some fear.

Exclusionary zoning limits building more than one home for one family on a residential lot. City officials argue that removing those restrictions would allow including more options that could lower housing costs and bring greater diversity to neighborhoods. 

Mayor Lauren Poe says white racists in the 1950s created zoning issues seen across Gainesville today as a means of keeping Black residents out of white neighborhoods.

Some Black residents, however, disagree and say that eliminating exclusionary zoning is a racist tactic itself, fearing that it will not only fail to bring greater diversity to neighborhoods but also will uproot Blacks from neighborhoods where their families have lived for generations.

“It is unconscionable for these commissioners, leaders to use race as a reason to dismantle our neighborhoods,” said N’Kwanda Jah, a GNVoices Director and long-time community activist. “I am a homeowner and I feel I should decide what goes on my property. I didn’t ask the city commissioners to change any zoning for my property.”

Jah and others say they have often received letters and phone calls from developers asking to purchase their property.

“I’m not interested, Jah said to the crowd of about 100. "I feel they would use my property to build an apartment complex that me or a few of my friends could even afford. I suggest city commissioners stay in your lane and help drive down the GRU bills that’s a great burden for me and others.”

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During the rally, GNVoices members shared strategies on ways to thwart the city’s decision to have Thursday’s meeting, which will only accommodate 30 people inside the meeting chambers, although more space will be provided in City Hall’s basement. People, however, can go in and out to allow other speakers.

Fitzgerald urged the crowd to show up early, hoping that with enough people, the commission will be forced to reschedule the meeting at a larger venue.

“... If we get so many people there that they cannot squeeze us anywhere close into that building, I think we can get them to postpone that meeting,” he said.

Should the commission vote to change the city’s zoning and land use ordinance, Fitzgerald said GNVoices will pursue litigation, which would likely halt implementation long enough for the new city commission to take office in January and possibly reverse the change.

Carol Lippincott, a concerned citizen, says she spoke to all the candidates running for city office and 11 out of the 14 — including mayoral candidates — told her that they would earnestly try to restore land use and zoning to what it currently is should the current commission vote to change it.

“You could say anything when you’re running, but I need to know what you’re going to do when you get in there,” Jah passionately told rally attendees, which included several city candidates.

GNVoices and others say the commission is ignoring the advice of three of its advisory committees — including the affordable housing advisory committee, the historical preservation board and the city plan board — that have all unanimously recommended against eliminating exclusionary zoning.

Rev. Ronal Foxx, the senior pastor at Shady Grove, says that the city’s affordable housing plan is a way to allow developers to continue building “mini dormitories,” referring to the increasing number of luxury student apartments around town.

“Building these affordable mini dormitories is bringing segregation back to Gainesville,” he said. “If we allow this to happen, what’s next?”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville residents protest ahead of exclusionary zoning change vote