Multi-step plan for affordable housing set for vote by Collier County Commission

Collier County commissioners will be asked this week to approve a multi-step plan to address a shortfall of affordable housing.

The Community Housing Plan, developed by a county-appointed committee, will be presented Wednesday. It has been more than a year-and-a-half in the making.

"Now is the time for action," the committee states with urgency in its report. "The future sustainability, livability, vibrancy and quality of life of our community is at stake."

More: Four sites owned by Collier County could be used for affordable housing

The goal is a plan not just for the poor but also for firefighters, nurses, teachers and other workers who have been priced out of Collier County. Some of those workers travel up to an hour to get to their jobs.

"The approach to date has been sort of piecemeal, and this puts everything in one spot," said Cormac Giblin, the county's grants and housing development manager.

Key elements of the plan include increasing certainty in the approval process for affordable housing and enhancing existing incentives, including density bonuses, for such projects.

More: Collier might charge fees to developers to help create affordable housing

Collier County Commissioner Donna Fiala has raised concerns about the plan, warning residents in her district that it could take away their right to have a say in what kind of housing gets built in their community by fast tracking low-income housing projects without their knowledge.

"The devil is in the details," she said.

What worries her most is that residents won't understand the more than 50-page plan. She has encouraged residents in her district to attend the meeting.

"I think people should know what's going to happen," Fiala said. "If they want to go along with it, great, but I want them to know what it means and how it will affect them."

The committee found Collier County would need to add almost 1,700 units of lower-priced housing annually to make homes and apartments more affordable for another 1 percent of the population. The plan, if implemented in its entirety, would create 1,265 a year.

More: 'Cost burden' drives larger demand for affordable housing

The group's recommendations include: 

• Requiring residential development to be included in the development or redevelopment of any commercial activity center.
• Allowing residential density to be increased to 20-25 units per acre at certain sites, such as new corporate headquarters or industrial parks. 
• Modifying an existing density bonus program for affordable housing to allow up to 16 units per acre. 
• Requiring developers to include affordable housing in their projects, to build it off site, to partner with someone else to provide it, or to pay a fee to the county, which could be used to help spur it.

"Higher densities is one of the most important things," Giblin said. "Increasing density and changing the product types offered in Collier County would go a long way in increasing affordability."

In Collier, much of the focus is on single-family or low-density development, he said. 

"By offering more and different product types, we can hope to influence the market to provide things at more affordable levels," Giblin said.  

The housing plan also suggests bringing more certainty to the process for developers to get a thumbs up to build affordable housing. Recommendations include allowing administrative approval for projects proposed on commercial sites and granting automatic density bonuses for projects planned throughout the urban area, not just in Immokalee.

The county has an expedited permitting process for affordable housing, but the committee suggests changes to make it faster. 

Other recommendations include changing regulations to reduce home construction costs and adopting a unified land development to create more walkable neighborhoods. 

The committee suggests fine-tuning the county's impact fee deferral program, which allows the payment of one-time charges on new construction to be pushed down the road.

But it doesn't recommend lowering the fees, which are among the highest in the state.

"The program that we have in Collier County is pretty superior to anything that anyone else is doing," Giblin said. "We were pretty groundbreaking when it was adopted about 12 years ago, and it still, in my opinion, looks to be the premier program that's out there."

The committee proposes the county bring back an affordable housing trust fund to help encourage the creation of lower-priced homes and apartments. The panel is recommending two primary money sources to revive the fund:

• Charging developers linkage fees.
• Charging fees to developers who choose not to build affordable units.

Each of those two revenue sources could raise an estimated $2 million a year for the trust fund.

More: Collier might charge fees to developers to help create affordable housing

The idea behind linkage fees is to have new businesses and industrial centers, which are bringing more employees into the county, pay to help meet the housing demand for those new employees.

The committee suggests the county charge a fee of $1 per square foot on all new commercial and industrial construction in the unincorporated county.

One proposal would require developers of new neighborhoods or apartment complexes to set aside 15 percent of their total units for mixed-income residents, including seniors and low- or moderate-income families.

Developers who choose not to build mixed-income housing would have to pay $127,000 per unit to the trust fund or donate land. The committee recommends $127,000 based on the difference between the median sales price for homes in Collier County and the price the group estimated is affordable to a household at a moderate income level  — about $200,000. The amount would be adjusted annually.

The committee suggests the county consider other funding options for affordable housing, including setting aside a percentage or dollar amount of property taxes each year to go into the trust fund. A sales tax increase, requiring approval by voters, could be another option.

The group wants the county to create a community land trust to identify, acquire and preserve property for affordable housing.

The committee has identified four publicly owned properties that could be used for affordable housing, including 47 acres deeded to the county for a public park in the Golden Gate Estates area.

Other suggestions include ensuring affordable housing developments are supported by public transit, adequately funding public transit, enhancing bike lanes and walkways, and creating ride-sharing options for remote areas. 

County staff recommend approval of the entire plan and want the authority to begin implementing it, with a suggested timetable for carrying it out.

The strategies and individual elements of the plan will require separate actions by county commissioners, who could nix some of the recommendations.

The proposed implementation plan would span a decade, with much of the heavy lifting done in the first three years.

County Commission Chairwoman Penny Taylor called it a "good plan." 

"What we're able to implement and how we implement it, that's the rub," she said. "That is the details we have to get into." 

Taylor said it's a big decision that could signal movement toward an economy that can better support companies such as Arthrex, the local medical device maker that announced last week it would build a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina. The company cited difficulty recruiting workers to Collier because of high housing costs, Taylor said.

"To me, the vote on Wednesday is going to be very telling to businesses like Arthrex, to new businesses we are trying to attract here," Taylor said. "Are we going to change?"

More: Arthrex will expand in S.C. partly due to apparent limits to growth in Collier

Kathy Curatolo, the Collier Building Industry Association's executive officer and a member of the committee, said she is eager to hear what commissioners have to say about the report. 

The association has concerns about some of the recommendations and opposes others outright.

"If our community is attempting to promote economic development, why would we attach a linkage fee to commercial projects?" Curatolo said. "And if there is going to be some sort of a fee on the residential side, then a linkage fee would be double dipping." 

Builders and developers, she said, hoped to see a recommendation to reduce the county's impact fees. The idea never made it to the table for discussion.

Collier County Commissioner Burt Saunders said there are recommendations in the report he can support and others he can't. The primary focus should be on allowing increased density and reducing or eliminating impact fees for affordable housing, he said.

Also, he said, the county should look at opportunities for public-private partnerships to build workforce housing on government-owned land. 

"I'm not interested in raising taxes and fees on our taxpayers for workforce housing," Saunders said. "This has to be a free-market effort." 

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If you go

What: Collier County Community Housing Plan presentation and vote

When: Oct. 25, 9 a.m. (time certain)

Where: Board of County Commission Chambers, Collier County Government Center, 3299 U.S. 41 East, Third Floor