Sarasota enters agreement with agent to find land to buy for affordable housing

The city of Sarasota has contracted with Ian Black Real Estate to locate and potentially buy land where affordable housing could then be built, an initiative officials hope will succeed more than earlier efforts.

The City Commission approved the exclusive buyer brokerage agreement that provides Ian Black Real Estate six months to identify suitable properties for affordable housing development that the city could then buy.

The agreement was approved by the City Commission in late March.

Ian Black, partner and co-founder of Ian Black Real Estate, told the Herald-Tribune he believes affordable housing is an important issue for the city to tackle and that he believes he can find appropriate sites for city purchase.

He declined to identify potential sites as he's in the beginning of the search and also did not want to harm the city's negotiating position. Any potential deal he works out would have to go before the City Commission for approval.

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Black and his brokerage will not be paid for the search unless the city buys the property or properties the firm identifies during the search. Commercial brokers — such residential real estate agents — almost always work on commission.

If the city does buy a property found by Ian Black Real Estate the commercial real estate firm will be paid 3% of the sale price.

The agreement comes after a Jan. 30 workshop where city commissioners discussed the need for affordable housing and explored options the city should pursue.

Mayor Kyle Battie said he worried that the city had tried available strategies to provide incentives for affordable housing development with little to show for its efforts.

"We've done that (provide incentives) yet we still find ourselves in a place where we're damn near begging developers to give us some affordable housing," he said.

Battie seemed to indicate support for some form of inclusionary housing requirement by setting affordable housing standards developers would have to meet if they sought to rezone property in the city.

Deputy City Attorney Michael A. Connolly told the commission that state law requires that if the city mandates a developer to build affordable housing then the city "must provide incentives to fully offset all costs to the developer."

Those offsets could come in many different forms, including granting allowance for more housing units or waiving city fees.

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City Commissioner Erik Arroyo proposed that the city skip incentivizing developers and instead have the city develop affordable housing.

"I propose we purchase land that would be our land, and having a developer come in and build it and then a property management company would manage it," he said, adding "100% of the units" would be affordable.

While the details of how the city would develop the property or how much a potential project could eventually cost were not discussed, all city commissioners voted for the agreement with Ian Black Real Estate.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota firm picked to find city land to build affordable housing