The Tallahassee City Commission recently voted to accept a report by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee (AHAC) which included recommendations that would impact how residential developers deal with affordable housing.
The list of recommendations are provided below. It is important to note that the acceptance of the report does not commit the city commission to adopt any of the recommendations.
The two recommendations that would impact residential developments address the criteria that triggers requirements contained in Tallahassee’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (IHO).
Currently, if a residential development is designed for over 50 homes, the IHO is triggered and the developer must provide 10% of the homes to “affordable home” buyers at regulated prices.
The new recommendations lowers the IHO threshold for a residential development to 20 homes and increases the percentage of “affordable homes” to 20%.
The AHAC is periodically required to “review the City’s established plans, policies, procedures, and ordinances, and recommend specific actions to encourage or facilitate affordable housing.”
The AHAC also submits a report to the City Commission every three years. The most recent report was submitted on on October 25, 2018 and contained the following recommendations.
1. Prioritize redevelopment of current housing for affordable purchase and for affordable rental housing
2. Create a strategy (by July 1, 2019) to use funds from the Southwood Development of Regional Impact affordable housing escrow account.
3. Amend Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (IHO) “to reduce the applicable development size from a 50-unit threshold to a 20-unit threshold.”
4. Amend Sec. 9-245(a) of IHO. This would increase minimum of 10% of units to be provided at prices no greater than the maximum price to 20% of the units.
5. Amend Sec. 9-249 of IHO to require annual status reports to be provided to the City Commission.
6. Encourage developers to use training programs available to create “apprentice-type workers.”
7. Post information about procedures, finances, and projects on the City’s website or provide a link for public use.
City Accepts Affordable Housing Recommendations That Would Change Development Rules added by Hannah Cooperman on
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Typical Bureaucratic nonsense, because it sounds good politically! More NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mandated expenses to the largest employers, tax payers, & charitable donaters to increase their expenses which increases the cost of housing to EVERYONE (except those that are subsidized). Do ANY of those who write these recommendations want homes substantially less than theirs built in their neighborhoods? Isn’t this one of the primary reasons for covenants & deed restrictions to establish minimum square footages & Archictural controls to retain or enhance values?? Idiotic government over regulation!
Just what we need to be paying for, another study no one is obligated to pay any attention to, making asinine recommendations that sound good, but serve no interests other than the collection of miscreants making them!
Go ahead and waste some more of our money! Idiots.
We will now start to see a lot of Pop Up Subdivisions that will have 18-19 Homes instead of 50-100 Homes.
MIKE…you are dead on correct…………..I would not touch a housing PUD under the rules suggested in Tallahassee……………just the worst type of social engineering possible…….and these liberals call this progress (for whom??)
I want to know what they think an “affordable home” price should BE. You can not Build a 900 SqFt 3 Bed 1.5 Bath Home with no Garage on an 1/8th of an acre for less that $175K. And that’s using your basic Materials and Appliances.
Why don’t we ever address the ROOT of these issues? The reason there are more “poor” people is that the government is encouraging irresponsible life choices. Used to be folks waited until they were married (usually) and could afford it before they had children. Then the govt. started programs that say: “We will be your husband” “We will be your children’s father”. No surprise: increase in domestic violence, poverty & an overwhelmed criminal so-called justice system. We cannot control people’s bad choices, but we CAN and must stop encouraging and enabling them. For the KIDS. It is tragic that little ones have to grow up in these chaotic households with no father and a succession of boyfriends. Not to mention that teachers then get handed the “problems” and eventually law enforcement. And of course we tax-payers fund the whole mess.
Reading government reports is easy and sometimes fun, but comprehending them is something else. Such was the case for me when reading the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee’s (AHAC) Report of Recommendations: 2018, 11/14/2018 (Report). However, from it, I gleaned that the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (IHO) either “has had a limited impact” or “has not made a significant contribution” to increasing opportunities for home ownership for the target population (Report, page 8/15).
To date, IMO has resulted in 10 applicable housing units (Ibid). If I understand it correctly, after a decade of implementation, IMO has resulted in one unit per year. From an evaluation standpoint, when a program is not achieving the desired outcome, one should revisit the program theory, goals and objectives, and implementation to improve program effectiveness.
Assuming home ownership for those making 70% to 100% of the area median income (i.e., about $45,223 to $64,605 per year in 2016), is a desirable outcome, what should be done to improve the effectiveness of the IMO? Based upon AHAC’s recommendations, there are not enough developments of 50 units or more to make the IMO very inclusive. Therefore, to increase inclusiveness, they recommend reducing the applicable threshold to 20 units.
One thing that struck me, reading the report, is that it’s not easy to comprehend the nature of IMO’s ineffectiveness. More inclusiveness may be part of the solution, but there may be other reasons too. For example, throughout its deliberations in 2018, AHAC had 11 positions available, but two of those remained vacant. Unrepresented were providers from the for-profit and not-for-profit affordable housing community. Whatever the reasons, a comprehensive review would seem to be warranted.
I think I will move to the county. Is it just as bad?
As usual the liberals will turn something into a stinking pile of donkey dung.
How many 19 house projects next to each other are we now going to see. Why does government always think they can legislate social will? We wonder why Tallahassee is such a hodgepodge of development with rules like this it is no wonder.
My first thoughts on this are that it’s an ominous COT demonstration of government “social engineering” by requiring developers to construct “affordable housing at regulated prices” in their developments, once they reach the IHO threshold of 20 homes. Is gillum now our “shadow” mayor? Sounds like an obama acolyte policy:
From The Washington Times, June 11, 2015:
“President Obama wants to “diversify” wealthy neighborhoods in America, and his administration plans to to force affluent communities to accept affordable housing, such as Section 8. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is set to release new regulations that would set aside taxpayer money to build cheap housing for poor people in richer areas. Under the rules, the federal government would be able to overrule zoning laws of more than 1,200 local governments and force communities to comply.”
link:https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/11/obama-set-force-affordable-housing-affluent-commun/
So, lets’ say I’m a private developer who wants to build a Golden Eagle-style of development somewhere in the outlying suburbs of Tallahassee. The homes on sizable lots will start at $400,000 and range up to $1 million or more.
Then the COT comes along and requires me to build 20% of the homes as “affordable housing” in my planned high-end development. So – how many buyers in my target market ($400K to $1 million) do you think will be interested in my development once the “affordable housing” is built and-or occupied? I’m thinking I’ll lose my shirt by even starting to build in Tallahassee. As a private developer, I think I’ll look in another city or area that won’t ensure financial losses for me before I start. This entire concept is yet another way for COT govt. to shoot Tallahassee in the foot.
I remember reading that, and thinking how horrible it’s implementation would be.
Talk about getting your property devalued, and nothing you could do but move – at a loss.
I’d demand a reappraisal of my property if that happened to me – the new lower value would drop my property taxes. Once the city realizes how much money they stand to lose on lower values, I suspect they’ll do a 180.
Meanwhile, here’s a NEWS TIP, on a company I’d like to see investigated. City apartment complexes are switching to a city-mandated utility billing company called ConService. The outsourced company, based in Utah, is basically doubling the bills of mostly students, but lower-income residents too. With the same exact service as before – no improvements. And adding a “service fee” to bills, of course.
I’m wondering:
Who negotiated this city- mandated confiscatory policy? Did Sean Pittman get a fat payback for this monopolistic contract?
I’ve heard nothing but bad news about them, from residents not getting their new bills, to how the sewer fee is triple that of the water fee.
I’m wondering if Dr. Erwin Jackson can provide any insight, although I know he’s mostly got houses for rent, not apartments.