GAINESVILLE – There may have been only one item on the agenda at Tuesday evening’s Gainesville Planning and Appeals Board meeting but it was somewhat of an unusual one.
At a time when tracts of land are being rezoned from residential to commercial for the purpose of accommodating business ventures, at a time when the city says their inventory of available vacant commercial tracts is critically low, at a time when Gainesville is awash with older commercial property the city hopes can be rehabilitated and eventually draw outlying retail businesses back into city limits, an applicant is hoping to build single family houses on a tract of inner-city land thought to be useful only for commercial development.
Eddie Martin wants to build five single family homes on a tract of land that until last week was zoned Heavy Industrial. His success in having the site down-zoned to Residential-ll early in December was doubled when GPAB members unanimously granted setback variances so Martin could build new homes that match much older residences not far away.
“We just felt like it was the best for that neighborhood,” Martin said after the meeting. “Gainesville needs more housing and we felt that was a better use for the land.”
Martin's project may be small but could it be the start of a trend to return a limited number of single family homes to a downtown location? City leaders already have recognized the demand for convenient in-city living in Gainesville, but most of that development has been toward multi-story apartments and condominiums.
So is having a house close to downtown possible? Rational? One need look no farther than historic Green Street to know that there once was a time when owning a home close to town was highly sought after.
The number of home buyers looking to live close to downtown is a growing trend according to the editors at Home.com, one of the leading national online publications following trends in housing According to Home.com, “…if you’re interested in owning a single family detached home in a high-density urban environment, you’re going to find a growing selection to choose from in the years ahead.”
Only time and economics will answer that question, but Gainesville City Planning Manager Matt Tate finds the concept intriguing.
When asked if some of the 170 new parcels that recently became part of the city’s Westside TAD Urban Redevelopment Plan could go residential, Tate said, “I believe so. In this case it works well because it is the entrance to the Newtown Neighborhood…so for their willingness to downzone the property from Industrial, which we don’t think would benefit the neighborhood, into residential, we think that’s a good thing, and yes, we’re happy for that.”
It may be a stretch to think that five single family houses being built on a small tract at the corner of Athens and Mill Street is the beginning of a trend, but Gainesville planners and decision makers have already awakened to the growing consumer demand for in-city living.
