A Talk With City Commissioners About Workforce Housing
Dec 3 “We have one more week to find a place here in key west. If we don’t find a place by the 11th, we have to leave.”
Dec 3 “I have to say THANK YOU sooooo much to everyone that has been helping us find a new home so far, it means the world to us that our key west family is there to help us look. No luck so far, but it only takes a moment to make everything work out. We have many many moments remaining in this last week of searching! I love u all and hope we won’t have to leave you.”
[Robin Whelpley-Menard is a saxophone player. She’s also a server at Finnegan’s Wake. She and her husband Derek have a beautiful little girl. They’ve lived in Key West for nine years.]
Dec 5 “So I have to start thinking about down sizing in case we move I have a bunch of furniture and a kayak and some old bikes that we are gonna have to part with should we leave town. Any takers? I’ll take whatever you think is fair. Message me.”
While questions of what to do about all the homeless coming to town this winter or about dredging the channel take center stage, the slow but steady deportation of Key Westers continues with seemingly little attention from Key West’s ‘fathers’.
Last month, it took just 19 days, after Judge Peary Fowler found an ambiguity in a public drinking ordinance, for the city to rewrite and approve a new law that guarantees that every homeless person with a beer in his hand can be arrested for drinking in public. But when it comes to affordable housing and the ejection of overworked Key Westers unable to pay rent or even find an apartment at all, the legislation somehow never seems to materialize.
“I have been on the dais for six years,” says Commissioner Teri Johnston, “I’ve brought the issue forward four times without any success.”
This year has been particularly brutal for the City’s workforce housing stock.
- 250 affordable deed restrictions expired
- 112 units soon to be lost at Peary Court
- 44 units already gone at Simonton St Trailer Park
“We were in a $3000/month place,” writes Chuck Sherman [also on Facebook], “and it wasn’t worth it. According to my realtor friends, there are about 50 renters for each available space. People are calling in “favors” (read bribes) with real estate management companies to get called first when something comes up.”
On August 20, 2013, when it was discovered that the redevelopment of Simonton Street Trailer Park would not have to include any affordable housing, the city commission directed City Planning Director Don Craig to propose a new ordinance to protect housing being lost through redevelopment projects. The same issue had already rattled the commission over a year earlier when Peary Court developers first refused to include affordable housing in their project. As yet, no such proposed ordinance has come out of the planning department.
The commissioners we talked to believe the delay is due to the planning director’s concerns that forcing redevelopment projects to provide 30% affordable housing may be unconstitutional. And by this the reader must understand we’re referring to the infamous “takings” boogieman lawsuits that developers brandish when some regulation threatens to keep them from the best possible return on their investment.
We are told that the internal debate centers around the difference between “new development” which is already required to provide 30% affordable housing and “redevelopment” which is not. We asked Planning Director Don Craig for clarification and comment, but no response had been provided at press time.
“We are nearly at build-out,” says Commissioner Yaniz, so ‘redevelopment’ is going to be 90% of what we will be doing. Major redevelopment projects, like conversions of trailer parks or apartment complexes are a serious concern.”
Is regulating redevelopment unconstitutional?
“The County,” observes Commissioner Johnston, “does have an ordinance that applies to both new development and re-development.” So, apparently County attorneys believe it can be done.
The type of regulation that requires a percentage of housing be set aside as “affordable” in large-scale construction projects is called an “inclusionary housing ordinance.” According to Jamie Ross, an attorney with the group ‘1000 Friends of Florida’, local governments are obligated to adjust their comprehensive planning to provide adequate housing and Florida Statute chapter 166 specifically authorizes the enactment of “inclusionary housing ordinances.” Ross also states that none of the developers’ lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of inclusionary housing regulations have been successful.
Interestingly enough, in California, the group Public Interest Law Project sued the City of Folsom for failing to provide adequate sites for affordable housing. (That lawsuit was settled and an inclusionary ordinance was enacted.)
“Look,” says Commissioner Yaniz, “if we said we wanted it to be 45%, it probably wouldn’t work, the state wouldn’t allow it because we’d be getting into property rights. But if 30% is defensible – and apparently it is – then I believe we should stick to our guns. It should be 30% [affordable housing] for redevelopment and new development.”
“I believe that the issue has now gathered the necessary momentum,” says Commissioner Johnston, “We should pursue a comprehensive solution to this problem. We need viable solutions and no idea should be shunned. And we need to create real incentives, so that developers will want to construct housing for the workforce.”
Commissioner Lopez also believes it is high time to regulate – before some other major development slashes another chunk of the workforce housing stock. “I believe incentives should be considered,” says Commissioner Lopez, “I have heard a lot of very good ideas from other communities.”
Will Key West become an overpriced ghost town dominated by absentee owners? This is a defining moment for Key West. We can have a town where no one in the workforce can afford to live; an economic apartheid where big firms buy-out local businesses and employ “guest workers” parked in some out of sight suburbia or we can be Key West, One Human Family…
Does Key West need a minimum wage? A number of cities have passed laws upping it from its current poverty scale – currently about $15,000 per year..Would that help? How about a hotel and restaurant employee union? Unless we have more land to build housing, raise densities, or pull some other rabbit out of the hat, there seems to be no alternative but to require affordable housing wherever possible. Also, a lot of regular Key West jobs are held by military spouses or dependents. What effect does that have on our workforce and economy? Most are already housed by the government and are possibly willing to take lower paying jobs that others could not afford to keep. Further, a number of hotels are using “guest workers” from other countries with H1B visas- living dormitory style lives. Maybe that’s a good thing, but the average worker is being forced out of Key West.
Key West needs a minimum wage and more. Part of the problem about talking about affordable housing is that it ignores the very low wages that people make. Even $15 an hour is not enough to live anywhere and not just Key West. The Keys have the highest priced housing and the the lowest wages compared to the rest of South Florida. So yes, we need strong unions and much higher wages. High priced hotels can easily afford to pay them as do expensive and even moderately priced restaurants.
Government forcing a private business to provide below market rate rentals is confiscatory. It’s like Publix being forced to sell milk to some certain buyers for no profit.
Affordable housing is a good idea, but the government should pay for it if they want it.
Key West administrators seem to be always surprised when a way is found around city regulations and laws. They might consider creating an ordinance that requires all new city legislation to be written so that the english language is not played with. State what the intent of the law is and how it will be implemented . Until all possibilities of misuse of the law are covered do not pass the law.
After all, Key West Government’s track record is not that outstanding.