Be clear about the changes
The choice of a word can make all the difference. If you happened to read The Sun on May 26th and read the sixth from the bottom page “Global Plan Change Notice”, you would have read that they are going to update the single family land use category and change its name to the residential area. It seems innocuous. Replace the word “update” with “remove” and you get a more accurate and precise description of what they plan to impose on the largely unsuspecting public.
I say “enforce” because no city commissioner has proposed ending the zoning of single family neighborhoods and none have used those words outside of closed doors and yet with four simple “yes’s” it will become the law irreversible of the country. I say “unsuspecting” because how many people do you think are actually reading this review?
I commend Nathan Crabbe for challenging us not only to criticize, but also to offer ideas on how to solve the problems. I suggest that our Mayor and Commissioners be made available in a variety of very public ways, in print, TV, radio and social media, outlining whether and why they support upcoming initiatives and changes, particularly when they are so radical and irreversible.
Relying on public notices to spread the word is literally the least you can do without breaking state law. If you’re proud, say it loud: “I want to end single-family zoning in our city.
Kurt Johnson. Gainesville
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find a balance
I was amused by Chronicle of May 22 by Jason Sanchez on local housing. He praised apartment complexes that creep into our quiet, historic neighborhoods, saying “neighbourhoods get richer by having more neighbors.” It’s like saying, “If you keep salting your soup, it will always get better.”
Forget the salt: neighborhoods are enhanced by residents who are committed to improving them. Sanchez’s column glosses over the problem at hand: do we preserve our old, family-oriented neighborhoods or do we let developers turn them into income-generating rental businesses?
Gainesville doesn’t need to cram more rental housing into our historic neighborhoods. What he needs is a housing plan that strikes a reasonable balance between apartment dwellers and existing homeowners.
The current effort by the city commission to allow any house to be turned into a triplex is a terrible idea. It will not enrich the neighborhoods. It will only make real estate agents, Airbnb hosts and developers rich.
Glenn Terry, Gainesville
Speak with the owners
Jason Sanchez’s May 22 column claims that she simply supports the enrichment of neighbors and neighborhoods, and inclusivity over exclusivity. Has he interviewed any of the residents of these areas to see if they consider themselves enriched by the higher density housing he supports?
Is he aware that the zoning by-law specifically provides for the exclusion of certain uses and the inclusion of others? Is the City Commission of Gainesville proposing to throw out its master plans for single-family residential areas and replace them with multi-family housing?
All of the examples cited in the column are in the greater downtown area or predate the last 100 years of zoning regulations. Some areas clearly support a transition from single-family use to higher density, as shown by the University of Florida. This does not mean that all R-1 zoning should be abandoned. Such a shift essentially means the end of single-family ownership in these areas and a shift to rental and non-resident ownership with the attendant problems.
Bruce Hoffman, Gainesville
destabilizing force
I write about current policies and attitudes toward illegal drugs because I disagree with the sympathy given to drug users and traffickers. Instead of proposing more lenient policies, I would like us to consider drug traffickers and users as the criminals they are. Drug users and traffickers have contributed to hundreds of thousands of murders, rapes and other violent crimes.
You do not believe me ? You didn’t follow. On May 10, Paraguayan anti-drug prosecutor Marcelo Pecci was shot while on his honeymoon. This year, El Salvador had 80 people murdered in one weekend. Mexico has lost more than 400,000 people killed or missing since 2006. Some of them were children forced into child prostitution. Twenty-five percent of Guatemalan government officials are suspected of being part of drug cartels.
Drugs are one of the main reasons why the governments of our southern neighbors cannot build stable societies. The corruption caused by the drug lords is a major destabilizing force leading to the problems we have with immigrants flooding our southern border. Most of them are honest people trying to escape the threatening and disorderly societies in their home countries caused by drug gangs and our drug purchases.
If you use drugs or deal in drugs, you are a criminal. Your actions contribute to the murder of innocent people and help destabilize multiple societies and governments.
Bob Gwin, Gainesville
Not in the Constitution
Far-right Republicans like to say that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution. They like to say that their job is to protect the life and rights of the unborn child. However, nowhere in the Constitution is this mentioned, suggested or discussed.
Nowhere is there a mechanism for the government to protect the life of the unborn child if there was that right – which, of course, there is not. This is a totally imaginary discussion topic created out of nothing by the far right
So how is it possible that very few far-right religious extremists can stop millions of women from getting abortions, including 53% of Republicans who support the right of a woman and her doctor to make those decisions? (the percentage supporting the right to abortion is much higher between independents and Democrats)? It boils down to a problem mostly created by a one-term president who got three far-right extremists elected to the Supreme Court
Jonathan Berger, Gainesville
Speechless and helpless
The right-wing Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people and money is free speech, protected by the First Amendment to our US Constitution. If money is synonymous with freedom of expression, what about us, the millions of working poor who pay taxes and have no money left after paying our bills?
We are questionable, dumb, voiceless and helpless. This is not how democracy was supposed to work.
Clayton Smith, Gainesville
Ban AR-15s
For 50 years my mother lived near the Ocklawaha River. At 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning, we heard gunshots. We were told that people hunt frogs to eat. These people were using AR-15 rifles What was left of a frog after being shot by an AR-15 rifle? These rifles should be banned except for law enforcement, the military, our allies and Ukraine.
Linda Lingo, Gainesville
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