Affordable 55+ housing project could be in the works for Lake Worth Beach
LAKE WORTH BEACH — Developers are proposing an affordable housing project for people 55 and older in Lake Worth Beach. Though it still has a long way to go, the project cleared its first hurdle at a recent City Commission meeting.
Madison Terrace would include two six-story buildings and a total of 176 units — all of them income-restricted. The housing project would replace an old car lot at 821 S. Dixie Highway, between a Walgreens pharmacy to the north and a Bravo Supermarket to the south.
The $32 million project would offer residents in-unit laundry machines, full-time property management, key cards and security cameras, and community rooms for exercising, socializing and playing games.
The co-developers, American Residential Communities and New South Residential, have about a dozen senior communities throughout Florida, and their latest project, Madison Square in Cape Coral, offers insight about their residential demographics.
At that community, the average age of residents is about 69 years old at the time of move-in, and the vast majority — 93% of residents — are from the county where the housing was built. The remaining residents came from other Florida counties and, in only a handful of cases, from outside the state.
The developers presented their concept for Lake Worth Beach at a meeting Aug. 15, when commissioners held a first reading of the proposal before voting unanimously to move the project forward. Project leaders also met with about a dozen nearby residents during a community meeting in June, and the proposal cleared a review by the city’s Planning and Zoning Board in early August.
If commissioners once again vote in favor of the project at an upcoming meeting, during a second reading of the proposal, the next obstacle will be funding.
A majority of the funding — about $28 million — would come directly from the federal government via tax credits, which are administered by the Florida Housing Finance Corporation, civil engineer Mike Oliver told the commission.
But the process of obtaining tax credits can be uncertain, he said, because applications are assigned a lottery number. Because the project is divided into two phases, obtaining funding for each building could take several years of submitting applications and hoping for the best lottery numbers.
"We only compete with applications that are in Palm Beach County," Oliver said. "We'll see how many there are, and hopefully we have the best lottery number. If we don't win it this year, we have the property under contract for three years and we'll keep trying."
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The first phase would include 83 one-bedroom units with 576 square feet of living space, along with eight studio units with 430 square feet of space. The second phase would include a separate building with another 85 one-bedroom units.
The housing would have to remain affordable for at least 50 years, and 10% of the units would be dedicated to extremely low-income households. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would set the rental rates each year based on the area's median income.
If the Madison Terrace apartments existed now, it would cost between $562 and $1,023 for a studio unit, depending on income restrictions, and between $603 to $1,096 for a one-bedroom unit, according to the project's website, madisonterraceseniors.com.
Giuseppe Sabella is a reporter covering Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at gsabella@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Worth Beach weighs affordable housing for seniors on Dixie Highway
