SARASOTA — The Sarasota County Commission voted to spend $28 million in Resilient SRQ funds on five affordable housing projects Wednesday.
But that may be all of the money from the program that goes toward affordable housing despite the Commission having allocated $40 million in the plan approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the expenditure of $201.5 million in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funding.
Twenty applications for affordable housing funding were submitted, with 19 of them meeting the eligibility criteria, Program Director Laurel Varnell told the Commission. A total of nearly $150 million was requested, she said.
Staff graded the applications on criteria previously approved by the Commission, including the percentage of project funding a grant would represent; the number of units proposed; and the period for which they would be guaranteed to be affordable.
The commissioners took different approaches in evaluating the projects.
Commissioner Mark Smith went through the list and awarded partial funding to most of them until it added up to $40 million.
But his colleagues focused more on individual projects, and found fewer worthy of funding.
Commissioner Joe Neunder’s initial list consisted of three projects: Nancy’s Village, in Sarasota, with 20 units, proposed by Community Assisted & Supported Living ($4 million); Cortina Oaks of Venice, by Cortina Development of Venice LLC, with 80 units ($4 million); and Sarasota Station, by One Stop Housing in Sarasota, proposing 202 units ($15 million).
Nancy’s Village is named for late Commissioner Nancy Detert, a housing advocate, CASL CEO Scott Eller said.
Neunder said he could also support Ekos at Arbor Park II, in North Port, by McDowell Housing Partners at 66 units ($1 million).
“I couldn’t get to the $40 million,” he said.
Neither did Commissioner Neil Rainford, who also liked Nancy’s Village, Cortina Oaks and Ekos at Arbor Park II, as well as On the Park Apartments ($4 million), by Quincy Real Estate Holdings LLC, a Michael Saunders company.
It proposes 48 units in Sarasota targeted to first responders, he said.
He limited the number of projects to support because “it’s not a secret that I’ve wanted to pivot some money to infrastructure,” he said.
He’d like to use about half the remaining $12 million for a new county fire station and the balance to pay for county-proposed infrastructure projects cut from Resilient SRQ earlier.
The Commission has already approved $45 million in infrastructure projects.
Commission Chair Mark Moran said he, too, would fund Nancy’s Village, Sarasota Station and On the Park, while Commissioner Ron Cutsinger said he liked all five projects the other commissioners supported.
They totaled $28 million, which didn’t sit well with Smith.
“We made a commitment to the community and all the agencies” to spend $40 million on affordable housing, he said.
The county’s grant from HUD was based on an unmet housing need of $145 million, Varnell said, which represents 72% of the $201.5 million it was awarded.
The county’s own assessment showed an unmet need of nearly $800 million, of which $524 million — 66% — was housing-related. The total housing allocation in Resilient SRQ is $101 million, or 50.3% of the funding available.
All of the affordable housing projects would meet HUD’s requirement that 70% of the CDBG-DR grant benefit low-to-moderate income people, she said, while only some infrastructures do.
If the remaining $12 million were redirected to infrastructure, as Rainford prefers, it might raise a “yellow flag” in the agency, she said.
HUD has previously indicated that it will accept changes to the county’s plan if they’re justified as being in the community’s best interest, but the county hasn’t tried to move funds around before, she said.
Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve the five projects they agreed on, and 4-1 to discuss after their summer break what to do with the unspent affordable housing funds.
In the meantime, staff will check with HUD on whether shifting it to another use would pose an issue.
Smith voted no, saying that if a housing project fell through, he’d consider using that money for another purpose.
“The problem is, we have more needs than money,” he said.
Most Popular
Comments / 0