Sarasota Livin'

Many things going on in Sarasota. The ever popular School Ave Project made it another step towards reality. It has been a very "unusual" process with very emotional positions to consider. Glad I am not on the City Commission cause this one is hard.

• 130 affordable housing units managed by Habitat for Humanity in cooperation with Sarasota Memorial Hospital -- that is a good thing.
• Very mad neighborhoods ... this is a bad thing.
• City staff not getting listened to -- usually a bad thing..

The Michaels Development Co. -- rebuilding Sarasota Housing Authority Properties -- It could be a great deal. The developers comes up with the money. Seems no money needs to come from the housing authority (good thing -- it is broke). I guess the City and County will have to pony up some money or at least float bonds.

In other county news we had a battle between Sarasota County and the Cities of Venice and North Port..

Yesterday was a huge day for the citizens of the County and of the cities of North Port and Venice. The BCC voted unanimously to delay putting the charter amendment to referendum in November... a momentary disappointment. They voted instead to agree with the cities to a 6-month moratorium on the cities' annexing of county lands and some other provisions. The cities and the County will have until 12 January (4 months) to have EXECUTED Joint Planning Agreements for the future. The 12 January date was chosen because, failing to have executed agreements, it gives the County 60 days to go ahead and place the charter amendment on the ballot for the scheduled 13 March election for Cities of Sarasota and Longboat and for some special districts. I suspect that vote will be unanimous at that time. Meanwhile, the cities have a huge hammer hanging over them to encourage them to work in good faith. These agreements with the cities must be voted on this coming Monday... if the agreements are unsatisfactory, then the BCC will vote to place the amendment on the ballot on Monday for 7 November.

Another fun one the Reds have won a new ballpark. not with my vote I like parks but only the green kind..

It seems to be getting hard to find a place in Sarasota where private developers can build affordable housing. So many people want it but there is no "just right" place to build it. With land prices what they are most of the city is just not going to be "affordable" to privately build single family homes with the current density.

It seems the places where developers have tried there have been an abundance of hoops. If anyone thinks there is anything close to a free market in real estate development ....

From Today's SHT:

Home idea stuck in neutral

Developer wants to build affordable housing in Sarasota, but opposition is growing

By MICHAEL POLLICK
michael.pollick@heraldtribune.com

SARASOTA -- The woodsy five-acre tract a few blocks north of the Ringling School of Art and Design seems like an ideal place to build affordable housing within the city of Sarasota.

The property on Old Bradenton Road is not in a high-rent district, so the developer, low-income-housing owner Harvey Vengroff, isn't giving up millions by not building McMansions.

Yet it's close to downtown Sarasota and to many employers, so residents won't be trading a low mortgage for high commuting expenses.

But when it comes to actually giving Vengroff -- or the guy who owned the land before him -- the right to squeeze a few more lots onto the parcel, City Hall has tended to move in slow motion and look for a way out.

In the Bayou Oaks neighborhood where Vengroff has taken up his affordable housing quest, buyers can find a house for $200,000 to $250,000, which is at the lower end of what is available in all of Sarasota County.

What Vengroff wants to do is build prefab houses, push them a little closer together than usual, eliminate the garages to save land, and start them off at a low, low $140,000.

We had strategy meeting at the sailing squadron. What a great place. I don't have a sailboat but I am thinking about joining anyway.

Governing magazine has a good article about Gentrification in Houston's Third Ward a largely African-American area. There is a tax increment financing district that has been buying up land in the Third Ward. The idea being to saddle the property with restrictive deeds and covenants that would ensure that it could be used only for rental housing in perpetuity.

What concerns both White and Coleman (local politicians) and most critics of gentrification is the prospect of Third Ward residents getting priced out of their own neighborhood. Recent research, however, suggests that worry is overblown. Studying gentrification's impact in Boston, Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor found that an influx of affluent newcomers had, if anything, merely contributed to Boston's socioeconomic integration. "There is no evidence to suggest that gentrification increases the probability that low-status households exit their housing unit," Vigdor concluded. Columbia University economist Lance Freeman found the same thing last year in a study of New York. In fact, Freeman found that residents of gentrifying neighborhoods were less likely to move than residents of non-gentrifying neighborhoods.

Those studies haven't tempered fears that the Third Ward is on the brink of upheaval and the perception among policy makers that something must be done to tame it. What Houston is discovering, however, is how slippery an issue gentrification can be. The Third Ward today is awash with developers, politicians, neighborhood activists and longtime residents. Each possesses a financial, political or personal stake in what the Third Ward is to become. And each, in distinct ways, is working at cross-purposes. Not only do they disagree on how to solve the Third Ward’s gentrification problem; they can’t even agree on what the problem is.

Is gentrification, despite what the academics say, really a problem of displacement? Is it a natural and unavoidable consequence of market forces, or does it result from specific policies? Is it a problem of low wages or one of high-priced real estate? Does it require government intervention? That such a debate is playing out in Houston a city famous for its lack of zoning and its developer-friendly ethos is a testament to the passions and confusion that gentrification arouses. What really seems to be at stake is something quite nebulous: the character of a neighborhood. And in Houston, as in many cities, that is inextricably linked to questions of political power and race.

Cooltown Studios one of may favorite blogs has a posting about a new building in San Francisco..

It's a brand new building. It's in the heart of San Francisco. It's incredibly affordable. It's a certified green building. It has a roof deck with great views. But it's probably not for you.

Eleven of the newly constructed Plaza Apartments units will have rents at 13% of area median income (AMI), sixteen at 35%, and the remaining 79 at 42%. Yes, there are government subsidies involved, but there are two main factors that allow such high-quality housing to be rented at such low cost:

- The units are brightly lit 300 s.f. mini-studios. Would you buy one for $99K if everything else was going for $250K? Many would. Those in Manhattan and Paris would kill for the opportunity.

- It's located in an 'up-and-coming-but-not-there-yet' area in downtown San Francisco, the standard qualifier for nascent bohemian neighborhoods.

Much too small for me but I like the "green" part of the building. Look at the pictures it's not a bad looking building either.

PS the previous several articles on Cooltown are also very good. What makes sucessful downtown events (not boring stuff) ...

In an email exchange with Mayor Mary Ann Servian ... she commented on an article written by Jon Thaxton titled "The affordable housing enigma" (very well written -- he devotes one paragraph of a long article to downtown Sarasota) the focus of the article was that protecting environmentally sensitive lands would have no real impact on the price of housing in Sarasota County. (I agree)

Joe,
Only counterpoint I have is that City has actually lowered densities not increased them. That has dramatically increased the cost per unit. We went from 200 unit per acre down to 50....
Mary Anne

My response...

Just to clarify your response .. are you saying that the density before the "new downtown plan" was 200 units / acre?

and is now 50 (not yet including the increased density bonus) ...

The Mayors response..

Neighborhood Workshops ... on Valentines Day
Feb 14th, 2006 at 1:30 and again at 6:30
Commission Chambers - City Hall

Read the details of the City of Sarasota Density Bonus Study for Affordable / Attainable Housing. There is lots of interesting info on this page... if you are a policy geek..

I need to read some of it before the meeting..