Affordable Housing - I've been a number of places lately where the subject of affordable housing has come up, and have heard a common question about why the city is "doing nothing" to solve the problem. Which parenthetically is a problem all over the United States, with the exception of a few places where nobody wants to live...
The press has reported a number of things the City Commission has taken on, i.e. the development of a density bonus program and the consideration of things like inclusionary zoning. The City is also certain to be an active participant in the Community Housing Trust that Sarasota County has launched. Yet I continue to hear people ask why we aren't doing something now!?
What I am happy to point out is that we are, and have been for a number of years, in cooperation with Sarasota County through our joint Office of Housing and Community Development. If you've seen my City Focus program this month on Channel 19 you already know about this department and their amazing work. In round numbers they've helped more than 2000 Sarasota families in the last five years achieve the goal of affordable home ownership. They have brought tens of millions of dollars of federal and state housing funds into this community, and leveraged that money with private sector funds many times over. (I will provide more exact numbers very soon.) They are also often overlooked in our discussion of this vital issue.
To learn more about their wide range of available housing assistance programs, you can check them out on the web at http://www.sarasotagov.com/LivingInSarasota/Contents/Housing/Programs.html. There you can also read the "2005-2010 Consolidated Plan" which outlines the guidelines under which they work. It's pretty impressive stuff, and a good example of cooperation between the City and County cooperation that tends to pass under the radar.
The press has reported a number of things the City Commission has taken on, i.e. the development of a density bonus program and the consideration of things like inclusionary zoning. The City is also certain to be an active participant in the Community Housing Trust that Sarasota County has launched. Yet I continue to hear people ask why we aren't doing something now!?
What I am happy to point out is that we are, and have been for a number of years, in cooperation with Sarasota County through our joint Office of Housing and Community Development. If you've seen my City Focus program this month on Channel 19 you already know about this department and their amazing work. In round numbers they've helped more than 2000 Sarasota families in the last five years achieve the goal of affordable home ownership. They have brought tens of millions of dollars of federal and state housing funds into this community, and leveraged that money with private sector funds many times over. (I will provide more exact numbers very soon.) They are also often overlooked in our discussion of this vital issue.
To learn more about their wide range of available housing assistance programs, you can check them out on the web at http://www.sarasotagov.com/LivingInSarasota/Contents/Housing/Programs.html. There you can also read the "2005-2010 Consolidated Plan" which outlines the guidelines under which they work. It's pretty impressive stuff, and a good example of cooperation between the City and County cooperation that tends to pass under the radar.
posted by Michael McNees at 5:43 PM
17 Comments:
Mike: There is great angst over "public" participation in housing. We ignore local success stories like McGowan Towers and focus on Janie Poe horrors. That's the snooze biz for ya, accentuate the negative and ignore the positive.
It is so easy to sit on our hands, awaiting a knight to arrive with shining answers. When in fact, we must produce the answers ourselves. To do that, we must ask the right questions.
So let me pose one: where are working people going to live? Especially those who work downtown? Is five-in-a-bedsit acceptable? A military-style barracks compound?
When Henry Flagler started building Palm Beach in 1893, he built an entire city for the people who would service his resort.
“One thing he did was build ‘a city for my help’ – West Palm Beach. All the necessary support services would be based there, comfortably out of sight of the resorters. Palm Beach would be kept separate, a private enclave for the rich. It was a success from the time the first private railroad car brought in a group of Vanderbilts and their friends. The Palm Beach Inn, later renamed The Breakers, was built to handle the additional demand.” Quoted from Fifty Feet in Paradise: The Booming of Florida,” David Nolan, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York, 1984, p. 121
What is your vision "for the help?" s/Stan Zimmerman
ps. Welcome back on-line.
The last post comments about the large area called Palm Beach and speaking from experience, I know it does not have any affordable housing. In fact it does not have any housing close to reasonable for someone on the low side of being rich. Even Palm Beach has businesses, yard help, city and county workers and tourists, traffic and all the things that make their life a little grander than ours in Sarasota. And, the last post points out they developed West Palm Beach for the workers. Bradenton and Venice have more affordable housing than we do so what are we complaining about exactly? How do people claim the affordable housing should be right down town? I would like to see that proposal at the Palm Beach Commission meeting. "I think we need affordable housing on Worth Avenue because the workers have to drive too far to get to work!" I am sure they would all vote, "yes, I agree!"
All of downtown used to be affordable housing just in case those that have just moved here in the last five years did not know.
Almost all of the homes in the surrounding neighborhoods used to be under $200,000 five years ago and five years before that under $100,000. So, what do you think made us become blighted? Now the commission is talking about taking the TIF $$ that has helped our city move forward the past five years and putting it into affordable housing within the city? Can they make up their minds? Do we want a strong great city or every time we make a jump to become great do we hiccup and fall short? Affordable housing should not be controlled within the city boundaries with our TIF $$. The city already does much for affordable housing and so do many other organizations and private companies. The county needs to think about this and not the pocket areas feeling growth. Growth happens because it is desirable which our city is becoming but we could become undesirable really quick if the commission does not follow through with the intent of the TIF $$. The commission needs to keep doing great things likes the Whole Foods Market and Lemon Avenue. As the last post stated Palm Beach figures it out, so does all the other expensive great areas.
The reality is people have to commute! So, I say to the county, improve your bus systems because we need workers from Bradenton, Palmetto and Ellington that are not so snobby that they have to live in the city of Sarasota and want to work in our great city, that is unless the commission hiccups.
Having just moved here from the Chicago area, I was amazed at the police presence at the Reading Festival this past weekend at Five Points Park. I counted six police officers in one block on Saturday afternoon where the majority of the attendees were under the age of 10 and everyone was confined to a very small area. Either downtown Sarasota is a hotbed of crime, or this amount of police presence is overkill. Seems like a tremendous burden on City taxpayers to have armed police at a childrens event, or maybe they're just really bored, or there is no crime/nothing else for them to do? Someone told me we pay for over 200 police officers in an area that is less than 20 square miles (when you factor in the water). That's incredible.
I would like some more specifics on the amount of money the city and county put into affordable housing. It is my understanding that they do quite a bit.
I do not understand why we are working on spending our tax dollars to put affordable housing in one of the most expensive markets. People will have to commute. Commuting is a normal phenomenon all over America, we should encourage that or at least acknowledge it as a possibility. Improve our bus systems if necessary. The city cannot control the poor selling their homes because it becomes the best way for them to make a buck nor should the city have to then pay for affordable housing because these people are selling. There is affordable housing still around town but it is not the lush atmosphere most want. But by moving to the less desirable areas they can too start to improve and that is how the downtown neighborhoods started its upward movement. The real question seems to be, do people really want to live in neighborhoods that are desirable or not? If not then keep them looking like crap, keep the drug dealers, keep the bums, keep the trash in the yards, do not improve your home, do not cut your grass and by all means do not sell not matter how tempting. Or better yet, rent it out to a construction crew of 10 each owning a truck.
Since you did a big study counting all the parking spaces in all of downtown both public and private why not do a study showing the available housing and apartment units? I see for rent and for sale signs all over Sarasota and there must be a way to connect the renter to the apartment and the seller to the buyer. It seems there is a lot of talk about nothing and since the commission is survey inclined, should we not know where we are before we panic about where to go. And do we have a waiting list of the people that need affordable housing because they do not have a roof over their head? Let's find out who we are talking about because it seems the only ones talking do not know exactly who these people are or they know ONE, which is hardly something to panic about.
In answering Stan Z's question I'm going to depart a bit from my usual rule of answering as directly as possible, because his question exactly what my vision is "for the help." What I'm going to do is say some things that I believe are true, and I'm sure many will disagree with some of them.
One thing is I believe is that the issues of housing demand, the demographics of Sarasota, the nature and price ranges of the available housing stock, and the local, national, and even global economic forces that are at play are extremely complex. Like many of our issues, there are no "silver bullets", or magic solutions, and our quest for understanding of the issue lags somewhat behind our quest for those solutions, which is probably because that's how we are organized as humans.
I know that thanks to the "Save our Homes" amendment, affordability is more of an issue for new residents than existing residents, because escalating values (and the resulting property taxes) can no longer force people from their homes. I find it interesting that this dynamic is never mentioned in discussions of "gentrification", because as a previous poster points out nobody has to sell because of value inflation any more.
I also believe that in crafting housing strategies we must be alert for unintended consequences. For example, assuming an affordable unit can be created, I think everyone agrees mechanisms exist to preserve affordability over time. But let's say we want the unit to be inhabited by a certain type of person - a downtown worker maybe - how do we ensure that without discrimination? I can't imagine we want to invest public money to create an affordable unit for a pair of retirees from Sheboygan, however nice they might be. Maybe there is a legal mechanism to qualify purchasers based on that type of criteria, but I haven't seen it yet.
I also know that the difficulty for employers, the city included, in recruiting employees based on housing costs is very real. Many good steps are being taken - the Housing Trust, for example, and the move by the City Commission to allow for density bonuses within the city (which went unreported in the local daily for some reason), to increase affordable housing stock overall. Many private employers are developing mechanisms to provide housing, individually and in partnerships. These efforts are certain to continue and will bear fruit.
Finally, as the previous posters have pointed out, this is a complicated issue that looks very different depending your vantage point. It's also one that's not going away, so the conversation is sure to continue.
To Anonymous 5:10 - I believe SCOPE did some inventory work like that just a couple of years ago. But you ask a good question. I can answer that manty employers would point to employees that have turned down jobs because they said they couldn't afford to relocate here.
It is true that it is harder to relocate to a wonderful desirable city compared to a run down and amenity lacking city.
To 9:13 a.m. - Good point. I know that's the recruiting pitch I use, and it's worked very well with people like our Police Chief and H.R. Directer, my most recent hires. I will say however that in both of those cases that are further along in their careers than other younger professionals (sorry guys), and that may make a difference as far as both what's affordable and what criteria drive the decisions. But all in all, I'll take what we have to offer in recruiting over a cheap house many other places.
The commission needs to stay steady with improving our downtown. People always have a resistance to change and they are the folks complaining. The downtown has come a long way and it has a long way to go. People that come from fine cities still do not see Sarasota as a fine city but we are getting there. If they start taking the money and spreading it out instead of keeping on course it will just be diluted and the improvements will not have that much of an impact on the city as a whole. We need to find funding from other sources to do the affordable housing or other areas beyond the city core.
Mike: I ran across a quote in today's NYT that struck a chord in our debate about AAW housing (affordable-attainable-workforce). The article was about beach erosion on Long Island. That is also a subject dear to our local hearts. Beach erosion.
The quote was: "not enough sand in the system."
Many of our current growth management tools drain excess "sand" from incoming Yankees. Impact fees, capacity reservation fees, the list is long and deep. All to the benefit of the "I'm already here" crowd. The 'Save Our Homes' constitutional amendment fits nicely in this milieu too. But the problem remains – "not enough sand" to fix the latest problem...in this case AAW housing.
Unfortunately the usual growth management tools are insufficient for this purpose. The "pay for additional density" technique is not strong enough to dent the real problem of "where do we house the help?" We need more sand in the system.
One of the reasons I enjoy Sarasota: we live on the finely honed, razor-sharp cutting edge. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the artistic edge of architecture, literature and painting. We rest on those laurels.
Today it is a fiscal cutting edge. Facing a problem recognized throughout the US. Our affluence has outraced our abilty to pay and house "our help." We face a great policy question: to what degree are we our brother's keeper?
In my initial post in this thread, I quoted David Nolan's history of West Palm Beach: "a city for my help," said Henry Flagler. Creating such a city is an epic undertaking today, because there are thousands of "help" needing help.
You are correct. Compared to Long Island, or Paris, we are cheap property. We are attractive. But as tonight's riots in France display, if we don't address the needs of "the help," we are doomed.
We look for leadership on this issue. Heaven help us if you can't provide it. s/Stan Zimmerman
What is Stan Zimmerman talking about?
Your TV show on channel 19 this month talking about affordable housing is very eye opening. I never knew the City & County worked on the issue as much as it does. The city needs someone to help get the word out on all we do down here.
I also ask, what is Stan Zimmerman talking about?
It is always amazing how people move to a city because of its uniqueness and all the qualities they enjoy...then try to change it. Bottom line: Those who grew up in Sarasota or who are long time residents resent that their kids, parents and friends cannot afford to buy a home here. Wages are low and not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer or developer. We have never had to commute to work-that is why we live here. This will be a city of the elderly, living in the condominiums or what we used to call the mausoleums by the bay.
Downtown was a run down mess and it was very affordable because nobody else would live here. As areas improve they become more inviting to a more diverse group of people.
Many people are moving from Longboat and Siesta Key to downtown because it is a great place to live now. It was not a great place to live several years ago.
Now we are redoing Newtown again and the same will happen there, the more you improve things the more expensive they get. This is and always has been the trend in Sarasota since the early 1900's.
So people want affordable housing on the lot the city owns on Palm Avenue. That is such a joke! So, we build 20 affordable units under $225,000. each and the purchaser has to homestead their unit and have a job downtown and then.....this is the good part.....they can retire in five years on the profit they will make from the unit that will not go back on the market as affordable. So again we have the same cycle in five years.
You cannot build affordable housing downtown unless the city or private company keeps ownership and keeps the prices affordable - so this sounds like rentals to me.
Why not build an apartment building on Palm Avenue along with the parking lot and have the city sell the lease to some entrepreneur just like we rent out Marina Jacks? But is not the lot on Palm a very valuable piece of land at this point?
The problem with building affordable housing on Palm Avenue is the owners can sell their units in a few years and make tons of money and it will enter the market at fair market value and not in the affordable range. Everything ends up at market rate unless it is controlled and profits go back to the city and not the person enjoying a living space in a good location.
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