(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Senate President’s signature initiative: Hundreds of millions for affordable housing; is it enough? [1] ['Mitch Perry', 'More From Author', '- March'] Date: 2023-03-06 When a major legislative proposal addressing Florida’s affordable housing crisis was introduced by Senate President Kathleen Passidomo in late January, some Democratic lawmakers quickly blasted the plan as a giveaway to developers, in part because it bans rent control measures that many residents would want. But whatever their qualms were at that time, key Democratic senators have come to support Passidomo’s signature initiative for the 2023 session that begins March 7. And the full Senate, which holds a GOP supermajority, is likely poised to approve the legislation in the first week of the two-month session. “This is awesome. This is a great bill,” said Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo, who represents part of Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Pizzo had commented to Republican Alexis Calatayud, a Miami-Dade senator who is the sponsor of the legislation, during a recent Senate committee meeting in late February. Keep in mind that the state House would need to go along with Passidomo’s initiative, and Gov. Ron DeSantis would need to approve the bill as well. And not all Senate Democrats have the same sentiment on the housing bill. In fact, Senate Democratic Victor Torres, of Central Florida, just filed his own bill on Friday about the housing crisis. It’s called the “Keep Floridians Housed Act.” His bill includes a requirement that landlords would have to give tenants more advance notice before raising the rent or for deciding to not renew their lease. It also would cap security deposits at no more than the equivalent of one month’s rent with the option to pay it in monthly installments up to one year and allow local governments to enact local rent control and levy impact fees on developers who displace existing residents. In the state House, two Democrats co-sponsored a similar housing bill on Friday: Rep. Anna Eskamani, of Central Florida, and Michele Rayner-Goolsby, from parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas. “While Gov. Ron DeSantis and Tallahassee Republican leaders push lobbyist-driven housing legislation focused exclusively on protecting the profits of landlords and developers, the ‘Keep Floridians Housed Act’ focuses on protecting the health, safety and pocketbooks of renters and tenants,” Eskamani said in a press release. Sen. Torres said in the same release: “It’s incredibly important that we focus policy on the needs of everyday Floridians. As a champion of working class people, it’s an honor to file this bill and push for real solutions that will even the playing field for tenants and help address housing insecurities for generations to come.” That said, it’s not clear if the Democrats’ housing bills will be heard in the 2023 session. Where will the money go Meanwhile, the Senate will be moving forward on passing Passidomo’s Live Local Act. The bill would invest in at least $711 million into the Florida Housing Finance Corporation (FHFC), the public-private entity that administers the two biggest statewide affordable housing programs. It puts $252 million into the State Housing Initiatives Program (SHIP), where funds are provided to local governments as an incentive for the creation of partnerships to produce and preserve affordable housing and $259 million for the State Apartment Incentive Loan Program (SAIL), including $150 million in new recurring funds. That program provides low-interest loans to affordable housing developers. The SHIP and SAIL programs are the two main programs that fund what’s been called the Sadowski Trust fund. The measure also calls for $100 million in non-recurring funds for “gap financing” – which will help bridge the financing gap on projects already underway but that are experiencing issues in starting or completing construction — and $100 million for the Florida Hometown Heroes Program, which will provide down payments to first-time, income-qualified homebuyers from all fields. The boost in funding to the Sadowski Trust Fund is being celebrated by affordable housing advocates, who bemoaned the fact that for nearly two decades, the Florida Legislature raided that trust fund at a cost of billions. “I think that the key to this (Senate) bill is that it’s a multi-pronged approach to try to get more affordable units built or rehabilitated,” says Mark Hendrickson, the facilitator for the Sadowski Coalition. “With really significant funding levels and some other tax incentives that are in there that in combination, that’s why this bill is in my view transformative legislation.” There are tax breaks as well, including an exemption to developers who set aside at least 70 units for affordable housing for households earning 120 percent of AMI (Area Median Income); a corporate tax donation program where businesses can contribute directly to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation instead of paying portions of their corporate and insurance taxes (up to $100 million per year), and up to a $5,000 refund for sales tax paid on building materials used to construct an affordable housing unit funded through the FHFC, according to a legislative analysis. Democrats both in and out of state government have showered praise on the proposal, saying that state leaders are showing a real commitment to deal with the affordable housing shortage. They also acknowledge that the legislation does come up short in several ways. “I wish we could do a little more with transitional housing for those returning citizens and those who are coming from drug treatment and need housing,” St. Petersburg-based Democratic state Sen. Darryl Rouson told the Phoenix. Rouson is one of four “co-introducers” on the bill, and the only Democrat. South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández, a former Democratic state legislator, told the Phoenix in a phone interview that the proposal is “an extraordinarily great bill.” But he objects to a relatively new provision which would preempt local governments comprehensive plans when it comes to standards of height, density and zoning for developments that guarantee that 40 percent of the units being built would be for affordable housing. In addition, the bill says a county may not restrict the height of a development below the highest allowed height for a development within one mile of the proposed development or three stories, whichever is higher, according to the amended legislation. Fernández says the law will require him to rethink about reducing his city’s proposed height envelope when it comes to a historic main street in South Miami’s commercial core, which is located next to a mass station – a location where he wants the Miami-Dade County government to allow for some additional density and height to support ridership. “The height envelope would create potentially massive conflicts on the east end of my commercial core that is not located near any single-family neighborhoods,” he says. “We could authorize a bit more liberal envelope for height and/or density. Somebody could come buy property on the west side of my commercial core which is within a quarter mile to half mile of the other side and have a 10/12/15 story building right up against a single-family neighborhood. And those kinds of conflicts are what the bill I think could create if it’s passed if drafted.” Rent stabilization? Florida’s affordable housing problems exploded into a full-fledged crisis in 2022, with several local governments contemplating enacting rest stabilization efforts. The Live Local Act would ban local governments from implementing rent control measures, a provision which a number of citizens blasted when the bill went before its first Senate committee meeting last month. When asked at a news conference where the bill was first announced, Passidomo said it was “not appropriate” to ask property owners how much they should charge for rent, saying, “what’s the next thing. How much can you sell it for?” Meanwhile Nan Rich, a former Broward County state senator and current vice-chair of the Broward County Commission, says she is also concerned about the preemption measures in the legislation because she says large counties like hers have much different needs than smaller counties in the state. Preemption in Florida is when the Legislature restricts or prevents local governments from self-regulating. Rich says that all of the large counties in Florida would benefit from a change in the formula of the original 1992 Sadowski Act that requires that 65 percent of the funds transferred from the Sadowski Trust Fund to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation has to be spent on single-family homes. She’d like the legislation to create a mechanism to give counties the flexibility to bring that ratio down to 50 percent single-family and 50 percent multi-family homes. “I can tell you right now that it doesn’t work,” she says of the current system. “It’s outdated. It doesn’t work for Broward County. Because we need 150,000 multi-family units right now. We can’t build 150,000 homes. We don’t have any land. “ And Rich, who challenged Charlie Crist for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2014, also objects to the banning of any rent control provisions in the legislation – a provision that immediately drew the ire of Democrats in the Legislature. “You’re not listening to the people and what they desire,” says Rich, referring specifically to Orange County, the one community in Florida that went beyond talking about rent stabilization in 2022 and put an ordinance on the November ballot, where it was approved by 59 percent of the public. That issue continues to be tied up in litigation. The Florida Association of Counties and the Florida League of Cities, both of which told the Phoenix a month ago that it was too early to have a full assessment of the Senate housing proposal, said last week that they’re good with the Live Local Act. “We have worked closely with the Senate sponsor and the association supports the legislation,” says Cragin Mosteller, with the Florida Association of Counties. “We are appreciative of the open door of the Senate President to compromise and shape legislation that will create much needed workforce housing across Florida.” The Florida League of Cities notes that the legislation expands the eligibility and makes permanent the Hometown Hero Housing Program initially established last year to make it based on income and not occupation (the Legislature devoted $100 million to the program in 2022). “This funding and other incentives in the bill will begin to tackle the housing crisis that exists in our state today,” a spokesperson for the group said in an email. Rich is aware that many in her party believe that the Passidomo/Calatayud bill is a giveaway to developers. She disputes that assertion. “A developer is not going to come in and volunteer to do a development to lose money,” she says. “It has to be viable, and we’re trying to make it viable.” Rich says that Broward County is currently scheduled to build nine developments this year with over 1,110 multi-family units. “I don’t consider that a giveaway to developers. You have to work together.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/03/06/senate-presidents-signature-initiative-hundreds-of-millions-for-affordable-housing-is-it-enough/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/