![https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=15fx9F_0sXgYfQF00](https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&url=15fx9F_0sXgYfQF00)
Backers of a new idea for funding the building of affordable and workforce housing say the method could steadily produce large numbers of units by letting growth pay for itself, without hiking taxes
The idea didn't start with any of the area’s many long-time vocal housing advocates.
Instead, it's the work of Drayton Saunders – president of Sarasota-based Michael Saunders & Co., the largest real estate brokerage in the region.
Though he unveiled it several years ago, it is now gaining momentum as employers increasingly struggle to retain and recruit workers due to high housing costs, which have priced out everyone from nurses and teachers to law enforcement and restaurant staff.
Support for the method includes the recent unanimous backing by the board of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, Saunders – part of Sarasota County's Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, or AHAC – has watched his proposal shoot to the top of the committee’s recommendations to area elected officials.
His idea is this: Use a percentage of the property tax from new development as a recurring revenue stream to fund a local affordable housing trust fund.
“We are in the catbird seat,” Saunders said, about the area’s robust growth.
But now, he added, community leaders need to use that growth to the area’s advantage and find ways to keep the region affordable for people who live and work here.
“Sometimes your greatest strength is your greatest challenge,” he said.
Funding affordable housing in Sarasota County without increasing taxes
In Saunders’ proposal – adopted by AHAC and now backed by the Chamber – the Sarasota County Commission, in consultation with City of Sarasota officials and other local policymakers, would decide on a percentage to carve out of property tax revenue from new development.
That money would be diverted to the county's Affordable Housing Trust Fund and used to help build new workforce and affordable housing.
Though the county has already set up the trust fund, it often sits empty because there’s currently no dedicated revenue source to fill it on a consistent basis.
Saunders' suggested funding method would not entail any change in tax rates at all, he stressed. Nor would property owners see an increase in their tax bills.
“Your bill will look the same whether we do this or not,” Saunders said.
The benefits of this funding method, Saunders said, include local control and oversight, and a steady and near-guaranteed revenue source as long as there is growth.
'Money is the secret sauce' for affordable housing in Sarasota
Saunders said he had several “light bulb” moments on the way to conceiving this idea.
As a former board member of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, he witnessed the deal for Sarasota’s Lofts on Lemon – a public-private partnership with the Sarasota Housing Authority that included grants and low-interest loans from the city and local nonprofits.
However, he also gleaned from his time on philanthropic boards that nonprofits cannot be a long-term solution or strategy on a housing crisis of this scale – given how donors’ dollars are often tied to an array of other specific missions and responsibilities.
“I admire the nonprofit sector for stepping in, but that is not going to be something that is going to happen on every project,” he said.
When Saunders was appointed to AHAC, he became an eager student of the affordable housing landscape.
It didn’t take very long for him and his fellow members to realize that many of the standard recommendations put through – things like waiving parking requirements, speeding up permits, developer incentives and more – weren’t accomplishing nearly enough.
A mix of tools was essential, to be sure. But Saunders and his fellow AHAC members found that communities around the country that make headway on this problem treat affordable housing as a "strategic asset" like schools and hospitals and create or identify a dedicated funding source to get it built.
“Money is the secret sauce,” he said.
Imagine, he thought, if just a small portion of the tax revenue from Sarasota's amazing growth could be set aside for affordable housing, the way other “tax-increment” districts do for things like the arts.
“The idea bubbled up after that,” he said, but leaders needed to be shown what might be accomplished with a dedicated infusion of cash.
“We had to wait for a pandemic and a hurricane to prove it.”
Disaster relief is not a reliable affordable housing funding source for Sarasota County
The $25 million that the county commission agreed to carve out of its federal pandemic relief funds for affordable housing will lead to 700 new units of affordable and workforce housing when leveraged with the initiatives of private and public partners.
Currently, the county is accepting applications from developers for a share of an even bigger pot of affordable housing money – $40 million – granted by HUD in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
While advocates greatly welcomed this influx of money and the affordable housing it will produce, they say that more is needed to meet the demand not just for hundreds, but for tens of thousands of additional units.
“Do we want to wait for the next pandemic and hurricane to have an affordable housing strategy?” Saunders said. “I don’t think so.”
Instead of the county and its residents waiting on the next round of catastrophe funds or for developers to act on incentives, a reliable funding method for Sarasota's Affordable Housing Trust would put the county in the driver's seat.
With cash in hand, builders of affordable housing will start lining up to do business with the county, Saunders predicted.
“The real decision is the general intent to do it,” he said. “It’s going to take an entire community to say to our elected officials, ‘This is so critical, you cannot punt on this. You need to step forward and be bold.’”
A 'game changer' for affordable housing in Sarasota County
Already sold, the Greater Sarasota Chamber announced that it is planning to meet with local elected officials in the hopes of getting them on board with this funding method as part of the dozen AHAC recommendations it recently voted to support.
The funding idea, together with the Chamber's backing, is a “game changer” for affordable housing, said Jon Thaxton, current AHAC chair and senior vice president for community leadership at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
A former county commissioner, Thaxton for 20 years had been calling for some sort of recurring revenue source for affordable housing before Saunders approached him.
“Drayton had to explain it to me before I could grasp it,” Thaxton said.
When it clicked, Thaxton found Saunders' idea to be “simplistically brilliant.”
Elaborating on the funding method’s possibilities, Thaxton noted that the money could be used and leveraged with partners to greatly ramp up the building of affordable and workforce projects in many ways, from building roads or extending utilities to lowering rent thresholds on partners' projects, or even the county buying land and building projects on its own.
Of the numerous positive facets of this funding method, Thaxton says he is most excited about the dynamic options it will spur for the county and its residents.
“When we are able to hold up that cash, you are going to get competition from developers to build affordable housing, and that is what makes it work,” he said. “There is nothing better than competition that comes with a market-driven approach. And that is what this is doing.”
“We don’t want a good deal,” Thaxton added. “We want the best deal.”
This story comes from 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 surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.
Comments / 0