Facing severe labor disruption due to workforce housing shortages, area business leaders are coming together to strengthen long-standing efforts to provide more affordable housing to the region. Masu.
Late last month, the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce's board of directors voted unanimously to support a number of recommendations on the issue put forward by the region's Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.
For several years, the advisory committee has presented recommendations to Sarasota city and county elected officials as ways they can work with developers to combat the housing shortage.
While action has been taken on some of the recommendations, housing advocates continue to be rejected on some of the items they believe could have the biggest impact.
Armed with the Chamber Board's approval of this recommendation, business leaders “went on the road,” meeting with elected officials and asking, “How can we make this recommendation permeate our communities?” are planning. said Chamber CEO Heather Kasten.
Sarasota's local businesses affected by lack of affordable housing
The move comes on the heels of an affordable housing summit the Chamber hosted late last year in partnership with several area nonprofits and charities.
The summit included many regional leaders among its 250 participants, but was primarily aimed at local employers.
“Nonprofits have known this is a problem for years,” Kasten said. “But now that this is impacting the business community, we've tailored it towards the business community.”
Highlights included the results of a recent survey conducted by the Chamber of Commerce, which represents 1,400 area businesses employing more than 60,000 people.
The results found that 73% of local businesses report that the lack of affordable housing is severely impacting their ability to recruit and retain workers.
Additionally, 1,500 workers here recently turned down job offers due to housing costs, and more than half of the young professionals already working here are leaving the region due to high housing costs. It was also revealed that they are considering it.
“Some young people commute more than 60 miles a day,” Kasten said.
Affordable housing recommendations could help ease Sarasota's affordable housing crisis
Also attending the summit were members of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, who presented 12 recommendations based on research and what they determined were “best practices” from around the country.
The recommendations address the dire need for “affordable” and “workforce” housing, with the former defined as including households between 80% and 120% of Area Median Income (AMI). The latter is often defined to include households between 60% and 80% of AMI. , according to housing advocacy groups.
Most of the recommendations, such as encouraging the development of affordable housing through faster building permits and reduced parking requirements, will either be implemented in some way or are already available to local governments to take advantage of specific state funds. Either it supplements the standard requirements that need to be met. say advocates.
It is within the scope of the Twelfth Recommendation and its subparts that members of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee have been pushing for large-scale action to address the housing dilemma.
Key among the recommendations is the creation of an affordable housing trust fund that uses a portion of property tax growth from new development to serve as a recurring revenue source to build affordable housing units on a regular basis. This is a proposal that works. The chamber voted to support this, as long as the trust had clear terms at the outset on how the funds would be spent.
The chamber's board also approved a committee on creating a voluntary density bonus program that would allow developers to build more housing units per acre, provided at least 12% of the original housing units were “affordable.” They also voted in favor of supporting the recommendation.
However, the Chamber board declined to support the commission's recommendation to mandate inclusionary zoning, which would require a percentage of all units built in designated areas to be affordable.
Momentum is growing in Sarasota to promote more affordable housing solutions
Kasten said, especially considering that last week the Sarasota City Commission passed a zoning amendment that would give density and height bonuses to developers who build affordable housing along several major mixed-use roads. said he is excited about the momentum this topic is gaining.
“There are a lot of things happening to change the direction of affordable housing,” Kasten said.
Another Chamber board member encouraged by the momentum and recommendations is businessman Mike Quillen.
As president of Gecko's Hospitality Group and co-owner of Watershed Hospitality Concepts, Quillen oversees 15 restaurants in the area, including establishments like Gecko's Grill & Pub. Dockside Waterfront Grill. Triple Tail Seafood & Spirits; and Blase Cafe in Siesta Key Village.
“We've lost a lot of people who can't afford to live here,” Quillen said of the impact the worsening housing shortage has had on his employees. This includes everyone from customer service staff to upper management, he added. Recruiting is equally difficult, with high turnover due to housing, so his company constantly spends money on training.
If he and his partners can find workers, they hope to expand and open more facilities in downtown Sarasota.
“But where will they live?” he said.
Still, he's optimistic.
“It's nice to know that instead of talking about this, maybe we're going to do something about it,” Quillen said of the crisis and working with local authorities, particularly trust fund sources, on recommendations. added.
Housing advocates are equally excited about business leadership on this crisis, especially supporting the idea of regular funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
William Russell, president and CEO of the Sarasota Housing Authority and former member of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, called this “very encouraging.”
He believes there are many tools needed in the affordable housing toolbox, including zoning, density bonuses and mandatory inclusionary zoning. However, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund is at the top of the list.
“Those are all important, but the money is what really matters,” he said.
Having a regular source of funding would help start more ambitious projects on a regular basis, Russell added. Examples include the $25 million the county has earmarked for affordable housing from its share of pandemic relief funds and the projects it is working on through $40 million from HUD hurricane relief.
“I think it would be great to have renewable resources so that we're not solely dependent on storm preparedness funding that comes in from the federal government after a big storm or a disaster like COVID-19,” Russell said.
Russell has never experienced such a surge of community motivation on this topic.
After a “pretty lonely” few years, when a small cadre of housing advocates showed up at government meetings to sound the alarm, it now includes everyone from general counsel and builders to small business owners, county departments and Sarasota Memorial Hospital. have met with representatives from up to major employers such as;
They all share similar stories of losing employees or being unable to hire new employees due to high housing costs.
“The community is feeling the pain and now everyone is concerned about this and it's affecting everyone,” he said.
“If we could get policymakers to adopt that policy, that would be a huge help,” Russell added of funding sources.
This article is a product of a partnership between the Sarasota Herald Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues around housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the region. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.
