INDICATORS: Sarasota County on the cutting edge of affordable housing

Sarasota County has taken some important actions to try to make a dent in the affordable housing problem. It has been aggressive, using data and proven techniques which try not to fight the market with requirements and regulations, a method that failed miserably and exacerbated the problem in places like California. Instead, the county has understood that you have to be competitive with the market and enhance it to succeed.

According to a recent county affordable housing fact sheet and a county breakdown of affordable housing units that was updated this month, Sarasota County has approved development with more than 3,000 new affordable housing units, with a third of those units going towards residents who earn 80% of the area median income.

This is a significant accomplishment and it is very important that the business community recognizes that the commission is not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. That does not mean that the County Commission and county administration are resting on these units. They are using a wide variety of tools to continue to encourage affordable housing. 

To start, the county studied the issue with members of the community. They received a situational report on the current housing situation in the community and created an Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. That committee issued a report on incentive strategies and the commission took aggressive steps to implement the strategies. That committee will convene and provide a new report this year.

According to the community movement Strong Towns, the first of the five immutable laws of affordable housing is that “developers don’t pay the costs of construction: tenants and buyers do.” This is now being universally recognized around the country, begrudgingly in some areas, as an important fact and one that must be dealt with head on. Our commission not only understands this premise, but is willing to use it to our advantage.

The county is trying to create an optimal regulatory environment to encourage affordable housing, which is counterintuitive to local government. Every regulation adds costs to housing and time is also money. The county recognized this and is offering expedited permitting procedures and processes which are streamlined for affordable housing.  County staff is currently working on Unified Development Code amendments to encourage and provide incentives for affordable housing.

The county has reduced parking requirements for multi-family and single-family developments, understanding that more blacktop means more costs and less housing. They are also allowing for accessory dwelling units in certain residential districts and have created half-dwelling unit density standards for multi-family developments.

The county has taken active steps to reduce direct county costs to the affordable housing buyer. Fees that place barriers to building affordable housing are being reconfigured to make sure they are not hurting affordable housing. The county has updated mobility fees taking into account rates for units less than 750 square feet.  Similar to mobility fees, they have also created a new residential, master-metered utility fee category for single-family units of less than 750 square feet at half an equivalent dwelling unit.

The County Commission has taken the issue of affordable housing so seriously that they have prioritized affordable housing before things that may be more popular like building parks. They have taken property which was designated for a regional park in North Sarasota when it was purchased and temporarily surplus-ed it for affordable housing development proposals. This experiment may or may not work, but they are making bold and aggressive efforts to try everything to enhance the market.

Sarasota County has a long way to go with affordable housing, but our County Commission has made bold policy moves and the county administration has implemented them or is taking steps to do so. The steps they have taken reverse the damage of government mandates and regulations and offer a combination of cutting-edge market solutions to a problem that afflicts the entire country.

Thank you to our county commission for staying the course and making a difference, you have created thousands of units with recent approvals and have positioned our county for thousands more. You are helping our economy and residents with your work on this community priority.

Christine Robinson is executive director of the Argus Foundation and was on the Sarasota County Commission from 2010 to 2016. Contact her at christine@argusfoundation.org.