South County Tiger Bay panel discusses affordable housing, possible solutions

VENICE – Sarasota County's affordable housing crisis now has roots reaching back more than three decades, an expert on the issue said at a recent community forum.

Jon Thaxton, senior vice president for community investment for the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, noted that in 1975, when he first got involved in real estate, people who worked in Sarasota were having trouble finding housing that would require 30% or less of their household income.

Related: Sarasota area governments mobilize on affordable housing

“Before it was a crisis, back in the late '70s, it only affected a few hundred or a few thousand people, but as the income gap has grown in our country and in our community we are finding more and more people further removed from the affordability range of housing,” Thaxton said Friday at a panel discussion hosted by the South County Tiger Bay group. “It's an issue now because it’s not only affecting those making subminimum wages, it’s actually impacting those that are making almost 200% of area mean income – that’s how out of reach this housing market is.”

Thaxton helped drive home the scale of the crisis, while North Port Neighborhood Services Director Alaina Ray offered an overview of steps that the municipality has taken to meet the affordable housing need and Sarasota County Commissioner Ron Cutsinger detailed Sarasota County’s efforts to prompt for-profit developers to build attainable workforce housing.

He also pointed to the county’s decision to dedicate $25 million in American Rescue Plan funds to affordable housing with nonprofit developers – a decision that will result in the creation of more than 700 homes.

Moderator Charles Hines – Cutsinger’s predecessor on the commission when steps such as allowing accessory dwelling units with single-family homes and reduced impact fees for homes of 750 square-feet and smaller were crafted – offered some insight, too.

Ray also worked in Loudoun County, Virginia, where builders are required to reserve 12.5% of homes in any development of 50 homes to buyers who earn between 30% and 70% of the area median income. She said it’s hard to leave affordable housing to traditional developers.

“As a local regulatory enforcer and someone who sits down on a daily and weekly basis with for-profit developers, you rarely get affordable housing if it's an option,” Ray said. “That’s just the truth.”

Ray said it was also important to give people a chance to graduate from subsidized housing to home ownership.

“Are we giving people a housing ladder that is attainable for them as they move through their lives?” Ray said.

She noted that one proposed development near Pan American Boulevard would cater to families earning between 30% and 50% of the average median income and another is targeting families in the 50% to 80% category, while existing home stock nearby in the original areas of North Port can be purchased by households earning between 80% and 120% of the average median income.

Thaxon said the current strategies attempt to remedy the lack of an attainable housing supply.

Inclusionary zoning, local requirements that require a certain share of new development to be priced for people with lower incomes, would address the demand.

“This is the part of the conversation that nobody likes to have but it’s critical to have because we haven’t had it for 30 years,” he said. “Every time we approve one of these luxury condos or gated communities of thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of units, we create a demand for a service workforce.

“They have been creating this demand for four decades and for four decades we have not been tracking this demand, so we have fallen woefully behind,” said Thaxton, who noted that established practice elsewhere calls for the construction of one affordable unit for anywhere between 10 and 20 market rate ones.

Thaxton contends that requirements in Florida Statute 166.04151, which allows local government to require developers to provide affordable housing as long as they are compensated, provides the remedy for that, too.

“The Legislature goes on to say that the increased value of a rezone petition or comprehensive plan density increase can be used to offset the cost of affordable housing to a developer."

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Affordable housing for Sarasota County topic of forum