The Sarasota County Commission has ignored most of them.
By Della Hale
Original Air Date: November 20, 2024
Host: On Tuesday, affordable housing was on the agenda of the Sarasota County Commission. There is a committee that advises the commission on how to tackle the housing-cost crisis, and that committee produced its annual report and recommendations. This is not the first time, but none of these recommendations has been put in motion by the commission so far. In fact, the commissioners voted yesterday to move millions of dollars meant for an affordable housing project to be spent on something unrelated. All that prompted a scolding.
Jon Thaxton
Della Hale: During the annual report of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, Chair Jon Thaxton presented specific affordable housing recommendations that were very similar to last year. The recommendations include creating a source of revenues for affordable housing from new development.
Jon Thaxton: A way to have a sustainable funding source under local control, under local discretion, your control and your discretion, where we would have funding that would offset the cost of housing in order to make it more affordable right here in Sarasota County. And the committee is suggesting that you take a portion of the tax increase that results from new development.
The beauty and the simplicity of this is this is not money that you have budgeted somewhere else. So it’s new money that’s coming in each year. And a certain portion of that would have funded the Affordable Housing Trust Fund by my best calculations, 28 out of the last 32 years. So it’s a pretty solid bet that you will see increases in your tax roll as a result of new development.
DH: Thaxton said that the commissioners should scrutinize each and every new luxury development for affordable housing, because “concierge-style” new housing creates jobs for people who cannot afford to live in this area.
JT: 12D is the one that kind of gets people upset a lot. It’s to consider a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy. This is a real simple premise. We approve development petitions that promise to tens of thousands of residents, maintenance free lifestyle, concierge living, and all of this sort of stuff. Well, it takes a workforce to provide that lifestyle, but yet there is no housing built to meet the demand of the new development. for that service workforce. Mandatory inclusionary zoning is basically a concept that says if you’re going to create a demand for affordable housing, then you need to be responsible for providing the supply of affordable housing consistent with state law. Meaning that the developer must be compensated.
DH: They also requested that the Commission review the 2050 Resource Management Area affordable housing Policies which was agreed upon between property owners and the county which was removed by the past commissioners
JT: The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee recommends that the Board of County Commissioners restore the original 2050 Resource Management Area Affordable Housing Policies. This was a commitment made between the property owners, Sarasota County, and the citizens. A subsequent county commission removed those commitments, that promise, and we’re suggesting to reinstate that commitment so that 2050 lives up to its promise of affordable housing.
DH: When the time came for public comment, Chris Wise, a representative of SURE — that stands for Sarasota United for Responsibility and Equity, a coalition of local churches — said many people in the community did not know the advisory committee even existed. All of them, he said, were appalled to learn that all 12 of their recommendations were ignored by the county commissioners.
Chris Wise
Wise provided statistics and some cold hard truths. Many people who work in Sarasota County have been forced to choose long commutes over their housing prices, simply because they cannot afford to live in the area without affordable housing.
Chris Wise: And as Jon Thaxton mentioned, nearly half of all families were overburdened with housing expenses and with the recent hurricanes, it’s likely this number has been impacted even further. These families are forced to make tough decisions paying for housing over necessities like food and transportation and medication. Some families are choosing to commute an hour or more each way, sometimes to their jobs because of the astronomical housing effects in our county.
We talked to countless residents who have had family members forced to leave the county, sometimes forced to leave the state. And even some of our members who have struggled to find affordable housing in the county. One shocking discovery of this research for many of our members was that there was an advisory committee about this exact topic for the county. Additionally shocking to them was that the affordable housing advisory committee had 12 nationally best practice recommendations for some time now. And some of the most impactful of those recommendations, as Jon Thaxton mentioned, have not been implemented here.
DH: Reporting for WSLR, this has been Della Hale.
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