This Week's Housing Discussion - Among the benefits of all the public comment taken this week on the proposed density-bonus comprehensive plan amendment were the new perspectives and new players that were brought to the table. One of the things that was said a number of times during the discussion does merit some additional information, a comment that had a version on each side of the issue; either "don't let this density bonus program be the first thing the city does to address our housing issues!", or "if you don't adopt this program, you will have done nothing to address our housing issues!"
For the benefit of those who came later than some to the conversation, I would like to offer some information as to what work has already been done. First and foremost is the work that's been done by the joint City/County Office of Housing and Community Development, which has put hundreds of families in afffordable homes through downpayment assistance and first-time homebuyer programs, as well as providing fix-up assistance and larger scale financing assistance for affordable rental communities such as University Park. They's also hosted an annual "Housing Summit" fo many years. I believe I've referred to their work on this blog in the past.
The city's Community Redevelopment Area is being expanded into north Sarasota to allow some of the tax increment funds being generated downtown to be exported to generate housing where land prices are lower, and where need exists as well. Thjis is a complimentary effort to the density bonus program, and will provide significant opportunities once the legal process has been completed.
The City Commission also provided $100,000 to the Housing Authority to help fund the development advisor who will guide the mixed- income redevelopment of the Cohen Way public housing project, and is providing staff to assist. We are also working in partnershipwith the Community Housing Trust, which is looking at projects within the city limits and helping structure some of our programming. The city has also provided many buildable lots over the years to not-for-profit developers like Goodhomes.
This is a very quick summary, and I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but I wanted to get information out there that much is being and has been done. Has the problem been solved? Certainly not, but just as certainly the density bonus proposal is not the first effort out of the box.
For the benefit of those who came later than some to the conversation, I would like to offer some information as to what work has already been done. First and foremost is the work that's been done by the joint City/County Office of Housing and Community Development, which has put hundreds of families in afffordable homes through downpayment assistance and first-time homebuyer programs, as well as providing fix-up assistance and larger scale financing assistance for affordable rental communities such as University Park. They's also hosted an annual "Housing Summit" fo many years. I believe I've referred to their work on this blog in the past.
The city's Community Redevelopment Area is being expanded into north Sarasota to allow some of the tax increment funds being generated downtown to be exported to generate housing where land prices are lower, and where need exists as well. Thjis is a complimentary effort to the density bonus program, and will provide significant opportunities once the legal process has been completed.
The City Commission also provided $100,000 to the Housing Authority to help fund the development advisor who will guide the mixed- income redevelopment of the Cohen Way public housing project, and is providing staff to assist. We are also working in partnershipwith the Community Housing Trust, which is looking at projects within the city limits and helping structure some of our programming. The city has also provided many buildable lots over the years to not-for-profit developers like Goodhomes.
This is a very quick summary, and I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but I wanted to get information out there that much is being and has been done. Has the problem been solved? Certainly not, but just as certainly the density bonus proposal is not the first effort out of the box.
posted by Michael McNees at 12:07 PM
19 Comments:
Plenty of thoughts, matt k.
First, from what I know about the YPG, a fairly large number of their members are the teacher-gov't employee-nurse types that much of the recent affordability conversation has been about. It's true their current president is a realtor, as are I suspect a huge number of not-for-profit board members all over Sarasota - does that mean they shouldn't have a voice? As for the "developer-realtor children" comment, can't we do better than that? Frankly if the twenty and thirty-something group wants to organize so their voices can be heard by the Baby Boomers who are making all the decisions, I say more power to them. The only thing that bugs me is that I'm too old to qualify for membership.
I agree we're talking about a regional, but nobody has suggested the density bonus program would "solve" anything; only that it has the potential to provide units at a price point that would serve a portion of the market where housing is short. (See the post above for some things that addressing other segments.) By and large I don't agree that downtown is creeping into neighborhoods as a result of this, it only talks about areas that have downtown-type land use classifications. The discussion of the former Scotty's property and it's ultimate density destiny (say that one three times quickly)has been ongoing since long before the bonus program was proposed. And there is some demand for increasing density in part of Park East, ala Harvey Vengroff, and related to the HACS properties in the areas you mentioned. Stay tuned for further discussion as the CRA expansion proceeds.
Finally, higher densities are the opposite of urban sprawl, and it is sprawl that stresses infrastructure, not density. (See "Southern California") Those who argued that building more units downtown would just increase the traffic coming down the North Trail from Bradenton are missing the point entirely.
21/4/06 1:50 PM
Mike, Great response.
I wanted to come down to the table and speak in favor of the Density Bonus Initiative the other night, but could not make it the second day of testimony. I thought it would be important to set the record straight as to the Planning Board's vote and it's reason for not supporting the staff recommendation. For myself, I supported the concept, but found the ERA plan needed some tweaking, and at the end of the night I had problems with the bonus's effectiveness in the Downtown Bayfront district.
More importantly I wanted to explain what I see as a great irony in this whole matter.
What is ironic is that we should be happy about the position we are in, and instead people are stressing. 7-8 years ago the City Commission was actually discussing consolidation with the County, and now look at us. Back then we were in a real crisis, the Commission at that time took action to make things better. They unloaded the Parks and Rec. and Fire Departments, which helped financially, but they also undertook an aggressive redevelopment effort with initiatives all over town. There were efforts on North Trail, in Newtown, annexations along our Eastern and Southern boarders, and a new major plan for the downtown. We desperately needed to revitalize the downtown area, or face municipal extinction. Enter Duany and his group, and voila! We began to grow. This was not due to Duany alone, the market happened to synch up nicely with our timeline.
Prior to this growth, City Commissioners were desperate for something to happen downtown. What did we get? A mix of buildings which have culminated in the most recent Plaza at Five Points which many cite as too large and a negative impact to the cozy feel of the downtown. From either too small for downtown like the Library Mews, or too big like The Plaza, these were the products of the former codes and the desperation for new development mentioned above. This was all we could get, but these projects served to prime the pump for where we are now. The City has gotten exactly what it hoped for. Hence the irony. Downtown is being revitalized, and we have lots of developers willing to come to town. We are in the position to sit in the driver's seat with regard to controlling growth. We have the luxury of picking and choosing the projects, including the location, scale, and project types, and we don't know what to do with it! Amazing. I think the City and Staff are doing fine with controlling this, and I see these efforts first hand.
Let's place density where we want it, and how we want it, and what the heck, if we get some affordable housing out of it, even better. More density, when controlled, can solve a lot of problems for us, and make us a better community. Somebody pinch me, a plan actually worked. Why not trust that the City can make a nother plan and that it too may work just as good.
matt k,
Just read your post, and I had to respond. I don't think Mike is suggesting that at no time in the future will the downtown core grow beyond it's current boundaries. That would be nonsense. In 2106, there will likely be big buildings on the other side of Fruitville for example, that is just common sense. Sarasota's downtown can't grow to the south or west due to water, so there is not much of an alternative. This neighborhood creep you mentioned can be controlled to a large extent, but with 10 story building height limitations in the core, some creep will be unavoidable.
Picture Sarasota a hundred years ago, and I am sure that residents of the neighborhood south of Fruitville (3rd) and north of Main, or any other neighborhood surrounding the "downtown" of that era, were concerned with growth issues similar to today's. Those neighborhoods are long gone, and such is life in the real world. Viable cities grow. It is what they do. If people and businesses do not want to be there, then they leave, and your left with ghost towns. The surrounding areas then quickly become blighted as crime in that downtown increases, and the cancer continues to spread until at last Mapquest drops you from their database.
More density will be a great thing for our growing downtown even if it is or is not attached to some attainable housing requirement. Build while the building is good. I do not see many core downtown property owners at the table saying do not grow but many from the surrounding neighborhoods love to voice an opinion. Why is it the neighborhoods get to make their decisions for their direction but the neighborhoods of downtown get everyone's input, to an irritating level?
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matt k - I understand your point, but think you may be mixing issues. The density/affordability comp plan amendment that moved forward this week doesn't add an inch of allowable height to any building anywhere.
Matt K. - In reality variances to the zoning code are not granted for height. The height limits in the code have been changed downtown recently, but that was for lower heigts in the new districts that were created from what was allowed in the old "CCBD" zoning district.
One thing I've mentioned on the blog before is that the decisions that allowed for higher-density, more urban development in downtown Sarasota were made way back in the early sixties, and the recent downtown code adoption lowered those densities. I understand that many folks in near downtown neighborhoods are saying that they don't like the buildings being built today, but unless you owned your property in the 50's chances are that was the allowable zoning downtown when you picked your neighborhood.
savesarasota - You've pointed out something that I agree is unfortunate, which is the tendency to draw a line between who the "good" and the "bad" people are. Not to get too philosophical, but typically I try not to worry about what others' motives might be, rather to deal with actions, ideas, and issues. But then maybe I have too much direct experience - I've been labeled both the villain and the hero in my career, and truth be told probably didn't deserve either label, for the most part I was just a guy doing the best I could to do my job in both cases, and I think that really applies to most people, they're doing the best they can to accomplish the things they see as important.
I give great credit to the YPGers that are becoming more involved with the issues our city faces. For them to be characterized as a group of rich kids who should not have a voice is quite ignorant. It is upsetting, people such as Ms. Chapman continue to throw hate around this city instead of building neighborhoods.
Is it not Ms. Chapman, the NIMBY who has sucessfully shamed the City Commission into moving the lift station #7 to another neighborhood at a cost to us, the taxpayers, 8-10 Million Dollars or more? It would cost less to just buy the current land it sits on and be done with it but no, we are going to pay for this woman's wish to have it in someone elses back yard.
I wish the City Commission did not give into this station move and worked on purchasing the land to keep it in its current location. This is a waste of our money!
I disagree with the practice of copying and pasting comments from another blog site into here. If the author of the comments being discussed did not post them here then I think it's unfair to bring them up here. Address the comments on the blog or message board where they were posted and don't try to force people to post in a forum where they were not previously participating in order to defend their comments. If the owner of that site wants to shut it down and combine the discussions, that would be up to them. All that ends up happening this way is that only out of context pieces of discussions are seen. There are dozens, if not hundreds of Sarasota oriented message boards and blogs. It would get way out of hand if there were lots of posts saying, "Did you see what so-and-so wrote on such-and-such site!" If it's not published in "real" media like the newspaper or on TV, it's not likely that everyone would be suitably familiar with the ongoing discussions on the other sites to be able to understand the full context of the comments being quoted.
I'm no expert on the blogosphere, but it sounds like you're describing the nature of the beast. I know my posts have been lifted and used elsewhere, and am aware of other popular local issue sites that are predominately made up of things pulled from other places. As discussed here in the past, the format has its shortcomings, but it is certainly public.
If the land does not belong to the City, though I would disagree, then who gets it once the lift station moves? I heard a park may be put there, but who owns the park, and at what cost will that be?
It is not "the nature of the beast" to discuss discussions taking place in other groups. In the first online discussion system, Usenet, it is quite frowned upon to quote from other discussion groups or to attempt to carry on simultaneous discussions on multiple forums unless the person being quoted is an active participant in both groups. I certainly have no idea what the other group is, or where it is or what much of what is being quoted refers to. The copied material refers to comments made by someone else that are not quoted, so it's completely unknown what the original author is referring to. I would guess that if it was one of your bosses, a City Commissioner being taken out of context and attacked that the post would be removed. There is also a question of copyright if the post we're talking about was copied in its entirety. "Fair use" only applies to limited excerpts, not copying an entire work.
Dear srqblogger:
I have no idea what you're talking about as I don't participate in the other forum from where you copied the post. "...never posed this disappointment to the site you posted on.."??? This is the only Sarasota political site I have posted on in years. So, how would I express disappointment there when I don't know where "there" is? Is it another blog? Is it a Yahoo Group? As far as being out of context, the post you stole from the other forum or blog starts: "I agree with the comments of mycitytoo." As the comments of "mycitytoo" being agreed to in the copied material are not reproduced here, one has no idea what is being agreed to by the author, which certainly colors any of the authors comments that follow in reply. So, it is certainly taken out of context.
Why didn't you simply reply in that forum to the comments you seem to so strongly disagree with? It seems rather cowardly to attack someone in a forum where they are not participating. Kind of like the weaselly radio talk show hosts that have guests on and then attack them after the guests are no longer there to defend themselves. As far as "being exposed" it seems the comments were posted on the Internet under that writer's real name, so they were not hidden and in need of exposure. Any search of Google for the writer's name will probably turn up those comments, possibly for years to come. I recall the writer ran for office once. I'm sure if the comments are as horrible as you allege, it will certainly come back to haunt her in the future.
srqcomment - I guess we'll just have to disagree, I don't go to many blog site but on the ones I've visited I see things pulled from all over and posted. I also don't see what context is missing, the comments stand for themselves as complete thoughts. As far as "attacking" someone who doesn't participate on this forum, although I didn't see the post as an attack, the person in question has participated here. There is a big difference between a critical comment and a personal attack, and if you've really followed this blog you will know that critical comments are left up regardless of who the object is, myself included.
Dear srqblogger and Mr. McNees: I suggest you read http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hsc "Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation" You may be assuming the old, pre 1978 requirement that © ©2006 be present. That has not been the case since 1978 under Federal Copyright law.
As Mike has shown in the past that he does moderate this forum, and recently removed a couple of newspaper stories that were similarly copied and posted in his blog, he would have liability for any copyright violations he is aware of and does not remove. If Ms. Chapman were to file a complaint she could force the removal of her copyrighted material. If you had simply taken and excerpt and posted a comment, your use would probably fall under what is called "Fair Use". But wholesale copying of an entire work is illegal. The fact that you claim this is a common practice is irrelevant. So is running red lights. I have often had to file complaints when web sites have illegally copied my graphics and photos to get them removed. In the www.blogger.com Terms of Service: "6a. CONTENT OWNERSHIP Unless stated otherwise for specific services, Member will retain copyright ownership and all related rights for information he or she publishes through Blogger or otherwise enters into Blogger-related services." And when you signed up to use the service you agreed to: "You agree to not use the Service to: ...(d) upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that you do not have a right to transmit under any law ... (e) upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party; ". As Federal Copyright law states that a work is automatically copyrighted upon creation, your republishing of that work would seem to violate that copyright the same way a previous person's post of a newspaper article was a copyright violation.
I think what Susan Chapman said about the YPG and Mr. Saunders and Mr. Foley is awful.
The YPG members criticized those who relied on their parents for help in securing housing, but they are the children of the privileged class seeking subsidies under the guise of “attainable housing.” Has it escaped everyone that they obviously have attainable housing? Is it credible that Dreyton Saunders, the son of real estate dynamo Michael Saunders, or Andrew Foley, the sone of Jay Foley, have concerns about affordable housing?
Marsha - I was at the meeting that's being discussed, and I honestly don't recall that anyone criticized the (very articulate) young woman who mentioned that her parents had helped her secure her first house. What I remember was a response to criticism that these young professional types shouldn't need assistance, and one of them pointing out that even someone on the other side of the issue had pointed out how she had needed parental assistance to get into something she could afford. I just didn't see it as a criticism of her. That said, I also don't see how the economic status of someone's parents is relevant to whether or not they should be able to express an opinion on the issue. After all, what does George Clooney know about hunger, but isn't he out there building a consciousness about Darfur right now?
srqcomment, interesting stuff on the copyright issue. I wonder if I have a case where the SHT published one of my posts in its entirety? I thought what was posted would be considered an excerpt, but if not wouldn't the SOS blog hold the rights, based on what you sent? I'm just glad I don't do internet/intellectual property law for a living, though it must be pretty interesting.
Mr. McNees:
You being a public official and the SHT being a newspaper reporting on public officials, I doubt you would have a case of copyright infringement against them. If they had simply reprinted your work under your name without any context or reporting, you could probably send them a bill for writing a guest column. I would guess that wasn't the case and your writing was part of a news article. However, your blog is not a newspaper, it's more like a bulletin board where anyone can pin up a notice. In this case, the bulletin board happens to be under your control, unlike someone posting a handbill on a lightpole on a public street. Someone would have a hard time holding FPL responsible for not removing copyrighted material from a light pole. Unlike a printed newspaper, you have the ability to remove material that violates copyright laws, as you did with the news articles copied from another web site. That's one of the reasons the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) was passed, to give authors and publishers recourse when their material is copied without permission. The Internet is not the lawless wild west. The often heard childhood excuse of "everyone else is doing it" doesn't apply.
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