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County tackles the high cost of affordable housing
By LESTER R. DAILEY
Article published on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005 |
PINELLAS COUNTY – The trouble with living in paradise is that everybody else wants to live here too. And the law of supply and demand has driven housing prices through the roof.
“We are at a crisis here in Pinellas,” County Commission Chairman John Morroni recently told his colleagues on the commission. “A lot of people are losing their mobile homes and don’t know where to go.”
“We want to be the kind of community that offers affordable housing opportunities for all,” said Anthony Jones, the county’s assistant director of community development.
But he added that he prefers the term “community housing” because “affordable housing” has a bad connotation.
Jones was part of a work group composed of planning staffers from Clearwater, Largo, Dunedin and the county that studied ways to help people priced out of the housing market. On Oct. 18, he reported the group’s findings to the commission.
One suggestion was that the county establish a housing trust fund to provide low-interest loans to people making between 30 and 120 percent of the county’s median income. For a family of four, that would be between $15,650 and $62,640 a year.
“A trust fund is intended to be a lending tool,” Jones explained. “We don’t see the county building homes.”
Eighty percent of the funds would be earmarked for the “federal entitlement districts” of Clearwater, Largo, St. Petersburg and the unincorporated county, and the other 20 percent would be reserved for the rest of the county. Funding sources would be such things as current taxes, bond issues, and fees paid by developers who want to convert mobile home parks to condominiums.
To prevent loans to real estate speculators, the county would get 90 percent of the profit if the property is sold at a profit in the first year of the loan, and 50 percent if it is sold in subsequent years of the loan.
“Our goal is not to put somebody in housing so they can turn around and sell it a year later at a profit,” Jones explained.
The panel also suggested that the county establish a “land trust” of surplus county-owned land that could be given to developers as an incentive for them to build affordable housing. One particular parcel that Jones mentioned is in the High Point neighborhood, near the county airport.
“Inclusionary housing,” which includes a certain percentage of affordable housing in upscale projects, is another recommendation of the work group.
“We think inclusionary housing is the wave of the future,” Jones said. “We’ve had incentives (to promote inclusionary housing) since 1994 but they’re not working. We think this needs to be a mandatory program.”
Jones wants the county to require developers of all projects above a certain size to set aside 15 percent of their units for low-income buyers. If that is not practical, they could build the required square footage of affordable housing at another site or work out some other arrangements with the county. In return, the county would waive impact fees and grant other incentives to the developer.
Jones had a laundry list of things the county needs to do if affordable housing is to become a reality in Pinellas. They include studying the needs, setting criteria for participation, passing an ordinance to create a trust fund, identifying funding sources, and drafting model redevelopment regulations for the county’s 24 municipalities to follow so they are uniform throughout the county.
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Article published on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005
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