The strategy calls for a minimum of affordable housing units in projects.
SARASOTA — A hotly debated strategy for getting more affordable housing built in and near downtown received a tentative endorsement from a divided City Commission on Tuesday night.
The strategy calls for giving developers the right to build two or four times as many homes as their current zoning allows, if they price 10 percent of those homes for middle-income households.
With a 3-2 vote, the commissioners forwarded the policy to the Florida Department of Community Affairs for its review. If the DCA and the city hash out and agree to its details, the policy could become law within six to eight months.
Commissioners Mary Anne Servian, Danny Bilyeu and Ken Shelin cast the deciding votes.
Servian said she voted to keep the proposal alive because she wants the community debate about affordable housing to keep going as well.
The controversial idea brought out “passionate” proponents and detractors who otherwise might not have talked with each other, Servian said.
“I was very concerned that if we didn’t transmit” to the DCA “then the passion wouldn’t be here for this,” Servian said. “I don’t want anyone to think just because this is being transmitted, it will be adopted.”
Servian, Bilyeu and Shelin called for builders, employers, workers, neighborhood groups and others to continue to debate the issue and try to work out compromises.
“We’re just at the beginning of this debate, not the end of it,” Shelin said.
Mayor Fredd Atkins and Commissioner Lou Ann Palmer cast dissenting votes.
Atkins thought a plan focusing strictly on the downtown area, where land is the most costly, put too much profit in the pockets of high-end developers.
“I think it’s time to address the whole city” with an affordable housing strategy, Atkins said.
Palmer said the plan called for a minimum of affordable housing from new developments. “It’s not enough bang for our buck.”
Last fall, the commission unanimously agreed to pay the Washington, D.C.-based firm Economics Research Associates up to $125,000 to study the feasibility of an idea suggested by the Downtown Partnership, an economic development group in Sarasota.
ERA created an affordable housing strategy for three zones already designated for apartments and condos.
Developers in those zones who voluntarily price 10 percent of their homes for what the city considers an “affordable” range would be able to build more homes per acre.
The average price of the affordable homes must be for a household earning the area’s median income. Under current guidelines, that equates to a $200,000 home for a family of four earning about $56,000.
ERA suggested that cooperating developers on the bayfront and in the core of downtown flanking Main Street be allowed to quadruple densities to a maximum of 200 homes per acre.
In specific areas on the edge of downtown, where building heights are limited to five stories, ERA suggested cooperating developers be allowed to double densities to a maximum of 50 homes per acre.
The commissioners added portions of the Rosemary, Park East and Central Cocoanut neighborhoods to those areas that could get up to 50 homes per acre.
Over two consecutive nights, the commissioners heard from more than 50 people who denounced and praised the strategy.
Andrew Ward, a 31-year-old teacher, said the plan comes too late for him. He is moving to Kansas City, where he found a reasonably priced condo, because he can’t afford to stay in Sarasota unless he rents a house with a roommate.
“I do not want to be a renter,” Ward said. “I want to invest and have something for my retirement.”
Longtime resident Stan Zimmerman shared the sentiments of those who thought the density bonuses were too generous and that the plan would not provide housing for the service-sector workers who need it most.
“The true beneficiaries are going to be young professionals and the developers,” said Zimmerman, who called the proposal “corporate welfare.”
By DALE WHITE
dale.white@heraldtribune.com
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