September 24, 2020
The city of Gainesville has passed some new legislation regarding rental housing that has citizens on both sides of the issue speaking out.
The City Commission decided last week to install an array of safety regulations and energy standards for local rental properties. The ordinance also forces landlords to pay for a permit and frequent examinations of the rental unit. The vote to pass the ordinance was unanimous, sans City Commissioner Gigi Simmons.
The ordinance has immediately been met with some staunch opposition. Critics of the new regulations say that they're merely going to drive the price of rental housing up, as well as some landlords who can't make ends meet simply selling their properties. “It’s going to result in increased rents. It’s going to result in less affordable housing. You don’t seem to grasp that basic economic concept,” resident Nathan Skop told the Gainesville Sun in an interview last week. “Landlords will be forced to pass those costs onto the renters.”
But those on the other side of the debate point to the prospect of an increased quality of housing, as well as a safety net for renters- some of whom may face revenge in the form of eviction when they file a complaint with the city of Gainesville about the quality of their housing. “What I would like to talk about is unequal distribution of power. The contract between landlords and renters is necessarily an unequal one,” Graham Gallagher told the Sun. “Of course people are scared to go to code enforcement — they are subject to retaliation by their landlord.”
Various pieces of the ordinance will be staggered in implementation. Property maintenence standards take effect on New Year's Day, 2021, while energy efficiency measures go into law on October 1, 2021.
