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M. Sounding BoardBOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Meeting Date: November 14, 2007 Division: County Administrator Bulk Item: Yes _ No x Department: County Administrator Staff Contact Person: Connie Cvr #4441 AGENDA ITEM WORDING: Request to speak to the Board of County Commissioners on Affordable Housing and associated Legislation and ideas- Ron Miller. ITEM BACKGROUND: N/A PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION: N/A CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES: N/A STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS: N/A TOTAL COST: -0- BUDGETED: Yes No COST TO COUNTY: -0- SOURCE OF FUNDS: REVENUE PRODUCING: Yes No AMOUNT PER MONTH Year APPROVED BY: County Atty OMB/Purchasing Risk Management DOCUMENTATION: Included Not Required DISPOSITION: Revised 8/06 AGENDA ITEM # Page 1 of 1 Cyr -Connie From: Ronlmill0l@aol.com Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 10:48 AM To: Cyr -Connie Subject: sounding board Hi Connie I would like to be on the sounding board next BOCC meeting on Nov. 14. My subject would be affordable housing and associated legislation and ideas. thankyou Ron Miller 206 w. first ct. Key Largo,Florida 33037 305-453-3849 See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage. 10/25/2007 Presented at Monroe County Board of County Commission meeting 11/14/07 Ron Miller representing Upper Keys Citizens Assoc The subject I would like to speak about today is affordable housing and related legislation. First of all, I think we all can agree that: 1 We need affordable and workforce housing. How much is debatable, but that the need is there is not debatable. 2 We have very little land for building new affordable, that is obvious. 3 We have very limited new development potential, that is not so obvious to some people. What we do have as a potential source of affordable housing is the re -development going on in the county and the re -development that will occur in future years. As a sidelight, we also have homes that can be secured as affordable with no increase in the number of developed units. I believe the workforce housing committee is working on something of that nature. The time is certainly right, considering the market conditions. I briefly mentioned this at the last BOCC meeting, when the fees that the county charges were being discussed. My question was then, and still is, how much is it costing the county to build one affordable unit, considering consultant fees, land costs changes. , LDR So, it may be cheaper in the high end spectrum of affordable to by- pass all of these costs (including construction and new allocations), and grant a sheriff, teacher, etc enough to bring the price of a home into the affordable range. In return, the county gets a deed restricted affordable unit. It certainly makes more sense than trying to get more allocations for the whole range of affordable housing. One of the things which motivated me to speak today is the Mandalay development, in Key Largo, which was heard at the Planning Commission 10/24/07. Here the county had the laws and responsibility to secure affordable housing from a re- development,but they dropped the ball. The way this played out, There were several Letters of Understanding, over a 2 year period beginning in Oct 2005and another letter of understanding in May 2006 and then several more meetings. The inclusionary ordinance was passed in July 2006, apparently the developer was told, in what amounts to an informal agreement — because there is nothing in writing, that the developer would not have to abide by the inclusionary which requires mitigation in the form of affordable housing or in lieu of fees. This was a full year before the development came up for a development agreement. Letters of Understanding that I have seen, have at the end a statement that indicates clearly that the developer is not exempt from any code changes. This informal agreement was not specified in the Letter of Understanding. According to 9.5-43 of the Monroe County code, "The letter of understanding shall set forth the subjects discussed at the conference and the county's position in regard to the subject matters discussed. The applicant shall be entitled to rely upon representation made at the conference only to the extent such representations are set forth in the letter of understanding." From this you can conclude that there was no written agreement which would form the basis for exempting the developer from the inclusionary requirements. So I have a big problem with the way this was done. These deals compromise the ability of the county to manage its land use. That topic alone is worth a separate investigation. This informal agreement with Mandalay tied the hands of the Planning Commission because they were told that they couldn't even vote on the matter. Your hands are tied also because you either approve the development agreement or turn it down, but in any case, the development agreement says if you approve this agreement you are also approving their exemption from the affordable housing ordinance. That alone should give you a headache.(item 15 on p.18 of File #27091 Ocean Sunrise Assoc. LLC (OSA) known as Mandalay development.) We need to get a clear consensus that the county needs to implement land development regulations that already exist, especially in the area of getting affordable housing out of re- development. It makes no sense to allow re -development without getting affordable units from that re -development, and then tell the Department Of Community Affairs that we need more allocations for affordable housing purposes. This county, more so than any other county in the state, needs to use the tools at our disposal to acquire affordable from the existing development and re -development. This is crucial now, and will be more so in the future, when we have reached "build out". We must, under the guiding principles of development and common sense, control our land development so that we can carve out affordable housing, not out of our precious natural resource — the Florida Keys — but out of our existing development. This brings me to my next point, that is the proposed change to LDR 9.5-268. We are approaching very quickly what is called "build out", but we will have years of re -development and it is important that we do not give away the land development tool which 9.5-268 represents. It is a means to recapture over -density as affordable. Key West is a good example of what happens when you continue to build without requiring sufficient affordable housing from the developments. Also, 9.5-268 and 101.4.23 — the guiding policy, are consistent with our comprehensive needs because they do not allow the transient units to be built back, regardless of the density requirements of the comprehensive plan. The fact that the principal residence was the main concern is indisputable when you look at the history of the policy (101.4.23) and the supporting land development regulation 9.5-268. This makes perfect sense because there were homes all over the place and to deny someone building back their home is a far cry from denying the density of transient units. After all, what direction are we taking if we now grandfather what was disallowed under the comprehensive plan? This doesn't mean that hotels will not be able to rebuild or upgrade. It just means that the county has a tool at its disposal to guide that development for the public good. Clearly, it is frustrating to see the efforts made by this administration to secure more allocations for affordable, while the same administration makes deals with developers exempting them from providing their share of affordable housing, while putting the cost of more housing on the backs of the taxpayers. This is a double whammy not only do we bear the cost in taxes but also the effect that this new development has on the quality of the keys environment. The idea that more allocations will solve our affordable housing problems is fraught with problems. More allocations means more development. So any percentage taken out of that for affordable, from new allocations, only serves to satisfy the new development, not the existing problem. This is a never-ending cycle. At some point, we must garner from the existing development and re -development, our affordable housing needs. And, as I said, we need to use this strategy to protect our great natural resource, the Florida Keys. I would like to add, for the benefit of those who are eternally fixated. on the money, that we have a beautiful and valuable commodity, known as the Florida Keys. We accordingly need to be the stewards of our beautiful place in the sun, and keep that commodity as magical and inviting as Venice or Rome, by protecting the natural historical attraction.