Hialeah turns to developers, attorneys to help tackle its affordable housing crisis

Solving the affordable housing crisis seems like a Gordian knot. But in Hialeah, a newly created Affordable Housing Task Force is beginning to look for land while discussing how to reduce construction prices and reach agreements with real estate developers to obtain quotas for units at low prices.

“There is a need for housing but construction prices are very high,” said Hialeah City Council President Jesus Tundidor.

During the first meeting of the committee, held Monday, nine panelists — business people dedicated to construction and architecture — presented what they consider the city’s main problems: scarce land, elevated prices and an outdated zoning code that they said delays construction.

Solutions were harder to identify.

According to committee member David Martin, CEO of Miami developer Terra Group, construction costs are high, as are interest rates, complicating efforts to build low-cost housing for people being priced out of the market. And land, the mayor says, is scarce.

But giving builders incentives to build affordable units in the city won’t necessarily work either, said Alex Ruiz, director of Prestige Builders, the main construction company in the city, with a large presence in the Amelia District.

Ruiz, for example, said Hialeah has an outdated zoning code that forces most developers to request special approvals to build their projects, with the number of parking spaces being one of the most common issues. But he said changing those laws could harm the design of some neighborhoods without necessarily leading developers to offer material solutions to Hialeah’s affordable housing problem.

“I think this task force has a very difficult job,” he said.

In a press conference preceding Monday’s meeting of the new committee, Mayor Esteban Bovo, Jr. said Hialeah needs “experts” to tackle its affordable housing problem, which he said was at least partly caused by the migratory wave of the last three years.

The housing crunch is countywide: Alex Ballina, director of Asset Management at the Miami-Dade Department of Public Housing and Community Development, told el Nuevo Herald that the cost of housing throughout the county has grown 123% in the last five years, but salaries have lagged behind.

In Hialeah, where a recent Worker Housing Study found that there are 40,383 rental units and another 35,759 housing units available for ownership, the City Council recently passed a new ordinance attempting to crack down on people renting out RVs parked in front of homes as low-cost housing. More than 12,000 new rental units are needed to address the city’s housing gap, according to the Miami-Dade Affordable Housing Plan from 2020, prepared by Florida International University.

Bovo has repeatedly said the city has no land available to build new housing for low-income renters. The municipality still has 55 vacant acres on East 56th St., but Terra Group recently proposed a new Hialeah City Hall complex on the site, offering to build a new 20-acre government headquarters in exchange for the ability to lease the remaining 35 acres for commercial use.

On Monday, Tundidor proposed that the committee identify the most viable lands within the city for housing before its next scheduled meeting, on April 8. Ballina, the county official, suggested that land that was not originally considered as housing should be considered, “for the survival not only of the not only of Miami-Dade County, but I think our our whole ecosystem, how it evolves.”

As for deals with developers, under Bovo’s administration, the City Council has publicly asked only one builder for help in dealing with the crisis. In August 2023, at Tundidor’s urging, Taves Capital Group LLC. offered to make 29 of 580 planned units at a new Hialeah project affordable.

Bovo said the council must come together to request affordable residential units when a construction company requests a concession, depending on the project.

In the meantime, Hialeah is also looking to the Miami-Dade County School System to identify available land. Roberto Alonso, the School Board District 4 member representing Hialeah and Miami Lakes, told the committee that the school district — which he said is grappling with a teacher shortage tied to the high cost of housing — would be interested in forming an alliance.

“We are open to conversation, especially when it comes to providing housing for our teachers and any of our employees,” Alonso said.

With the city saying there is no available public land zoned for housing within its jurisdiction, Hialeah finds itself at a juncture where external support becomes paramount. Alternatives include looking to school board-owned land or city parks.

The city recently drew scrutiny after swapping one of its parks, Three Friends, for a single house. In October, Jose Azze, an advocate for parks in Hialeah, filed three complaints with the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission against Hialeah over the swap.

Azze fears that the Affordable Housing Task Force ”is going after” the city’s park land.