Newsroom

The City of Gainesville receives State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) Program funds from the State of Florida’s Florida Housing Finance Corporation (FHFC). The purpose of the funding is to provide affordable housing assistance to Gainesville households earning extremely low-, very low-, low- and moderate-incomes. To receive public input, the city will hold a public meeting and two public hearings to discuss the city’s proposed three-year SHIP Local Housing Assistance Plan (LHAP). The LHAP will govern the SHIP Program’s affordable housing activities during the period of July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2017. When complete, the SHIP LHAP will summarize affordable housing priorities, planned activities and funding levels anticipated for implementation during the three-year period, subject to actual allocation as approved by the Florida Legislature. The times and locations of the meetings are:

The City of Gainesville is accepting applications for the FY14 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program and HOME Investments Partnerships (HOME) Program. The city receives an annual allocation from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); and funding will cover the budget period of Oct. 1, 2014-Sept. 30, 2015. The deadline to submit an application is Monday, March 10, 2014 at 5 p.m. Applications will not be accepted after 5 p.m.

Residents or students interested in a crash course on local government and city planning and management need look no further than the City of Gainesville itself. Gainesville 101: the Spring 2014 Citizens' Academy is a six-week program organized by the City of Gainesville Communications Office, and designed to teach city residents about the inner workings of local government and city management.

The Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department welcomes Alicia Antone as its new development and partnership program coordinator. Her primary responsibilities include forging new relationships and strengthening existing relationships with partners, sponsors, funders and grantors. This includes conducting a full-range of activities required to prepare, submit and manage new grant proposals for public and private funders and identifying sources of restricted and unrestricted funding.

The "City Manager’s Biweekly Report to the City Commission" provides information about significant upcoming activities, projects, and meetings in the City of Gainesville over the course of the next two to three weeks. In addition to brief descriptions on each of the upcoming activities, you can click on hyperlinks for more information regarding the presented topic. The Feb. 20-March 5 edition is now available.

Pending receipt of agreements from homeowners, work is scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 17. The first phase of work will be the removal of fencing and trees. Crews from GRU and private companies will be in the area marking utility locations in the right-of-way of Northwest 30^th Avenue and adjacent private properties during the same week.

The Thomas Center Galleries announces the opening of the Showcasing Student Art - Secondary Schools Exhibition presented by the Alachua County Public Schools Visual Arts Program, which is scheduled to run Monday, Feb. 17-Saturday, March 29, 2014 in the Thomas Center Mezzanine Gallery. The exhibition includes 52 works of art that were created during the 2013-2014 school year in Alachua County secondary schools (grades 6-12) by students who were selected by nine teachers from six participating schools.

The City of Gainesville Planning Department is holding a series of neighborhood workshops to discuss proposed land use and zoning changes for properties within the City of Gainesville. Planning staff has started the process of mailing out more than 10,000 notices to property owners and affected parties.

The City of Gainesville Regional Transit System (RTS) is hosting a public meeting to review the findings of the GO Enhance RTS Study and recommended preferred alternative. You can review the GO Enhance RTS Study Draft Report and Appendix on the study website at www.go-enhanceRTS.com.

At this afternoon's regularly scheduled City Commission meeting, the Gainesville City Commission voted to approve agreements with the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry (ACCHH) to implement and administer services for the homeless at the former Gainesville Correctional Institution (GCI), which currently referred to by some as the Gainesville Empowerment Center. Funding for the first year of center operations will be provided by the City Commission and the Alachua County Board of Commissioners. Each local government has approved $154,000 for total annual budget of $308,000 to fund operations during fiscal year 2013-2014.