Getting a Handle on Affordable Housing

By Commissioner Jeff Koons

One of the most vexing problems the Board of County Commissioners has ever faced is the lack of affordable housing. While home prices have actually come down a little bit recently, for most families buying a new single-family home is still out of the question. The median income for a family of four in Palm Beach County is $64,400, while the median price of an existing home is around $400,000. That’s a huge affordability gap.

A report by the Florida Housing Coalition says that housing costs have increased seven times as much as wages since 2003. A study by the Palm Beach County Housing Leadership Council indicates 90 percent of our local workforce can’t afford a median priced home. Right now, you would need to earn $132,000 a year to qualify for a median priced home in West Palm Beach. The County’s own comprehensive housing study tells us we will be short 31,000 affordable homes by the year 2010. Currently, about a third of homeowners and renters spend more than 30 percent of their household income on housing; many are spending more than half their earnings.

Without an adequate supply of workforce housing – dwellings that can be purchased by teachers, police officers and firefighters, mechanics and tradesmen, engineers and utility workers, health-care workers, store clerks and government employees – our economy will stagnate. We’ve already lost too many good workers to other counties and other states simply because they could no longer afford to live here.

My fellow commissioners and I have spent months working with staff and consultants studying the data, trying to figure out how to give low and moderate-income earners a chance at home ownership. Earlier this year, we enacted the Workforce Housing Program to create more attainable housing in unincorporated areas. The interim program will be formally adopted once our comprehensive plan is amended toward the end of the year.

Under the Workforce Housing Program, at least 25 percent of homes in new developments must be for sale at below market prices, between $164,000 and $304,000. To be fair, we’re offering density bonuses that allow up to 30 percent more homes to be built in order to offset the lost profits.

The County recently purchased seven acres of land west of Lake Worth where 35 homes can be built. The land will be offered to developers free, as long as they sell all the homes in the $164,000 to $304,000 range. A lottery will soon be held enabling five lucky families to purchase nice homes from the County at below market prices. We’re exploring the possibility of a luxury home fee or a commercial business fee to help pay for workforce housing. We have formed the Palm Beach County Community Land Trust (CLT), a nonprofit organization that can own land and make it available on a long-term basis for attainable housing. That group has already purchased 10 acres and is seeking bids.

Of course, we need the cities to be on board with attainable housing, too. The City of Delray Beach has a workforce housing program similar to the County’s, and Boca Raton and Jupiter have been helping developers locate workforce housing units close to existing employment centers, enabling many workers to walk to work. In Pahokee, the city is arranging grants and low-interest loans to help a developer build 149 new homes near downtown. Priced as low as $140,000, the project will replace homes lost to hurricanes and help revitalize the community.

The Board of County Commissioners is firmly committed to creating more affordable housing. It will mean changing some of our own ordinances and rules, and working cooperatively with builders, real estate professionals and municipalities to ensure a fair and effective long-term approach.