The Live Local Alliance: Ensuring housing for our workforce

The Florida Housing Finance Corporation Chief Trey Price is touting an expansion of the Housing Stability for Homeless Schoolchildren Initiative.

Since the blessings of air conditioning, Florida has been — and will continue to be — a desirable place to live, work and retire. With this desirability comes both challenges and opportunities, particularly in workforce housing.

Longtime housing advocates were thrilled to see workforce housing take center stage during the 2023 Legislative Session in Tallahassee. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo of Naples, a real estate lawyer and resident of a city facing a long-standing workforce housing shortage, championed the Live Local Act. Early reports indicate that this legislation is making positive strides in addressing housing concerns.

The new law can establish a framework for collaboration between industry and local and state governments. The goal of the Live Local Act is to create a sustainable environment where housing is not only affordable but also accessible to a broader spectrum of Floridians.

The need for workforce housing has never been more critical. Our nurses, firefighters, police officers, restaurant servers and many others who form the backbone of our communities deserve to live in clean, safe environments they can be proud to call home. The Live Local Act aims to encourage developers to set aside a portion of apartment units specifically for these essential workers. This initiative challenges the status quo, which often leads to “hollow” cities where only the wealthy can afford to live. Current de facto policies, including moratoriums, zoning and land use restrictions, create exclusionary environments, further driving up the cost of housing and rewarding the wealthy.

Florida needs new housing units to compensate for the significant shortage resulting from the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Many small- to medium-sized local homebuilders went out of business, and homebuilding slowed to a trickle even as people continued to flock to Florida. The post-pandemic period has only intensified the demand, leading to a dramatic increase in home prices. The Live Local Act seeks to address this imbalance by incentivizing the development of more housing units, thereby increasing supply and stabilizing prices.

As with any complex legislation, the Live Local Act is not without its challenges. Development interests and local governments have identified technical issues, and the “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) attitude has emerged in some areas of the state. Even worse, some bad actors have taken unreasonable stands against the new law, complicating its implementation. If obstruction succeeds, it will fan the flames in favor of harsher policies that will not benefit Floridians.

On the national level, the idea of establishing a national rent control policy has also emerged. Policies like these discourage investment in new housing developments, leading to a reduction in the overall supply of rental units. When supply is restricted, prices inevitably rise, creating a vicious cycle of scarcity and unaffordability. Moreover, rent control can lead to the deterioration of existing housing stock as landlords may lack the funds to maintain and improve their properties.

There have been reports of some local governments obstructing the Live Local Act and refusing to comply with the law. Some have filed legal challenges or dared developers to do so. While unfortunate, our legal process exists for disputes to be settled in court. However, as a housing advocate and a contributing author to the Live Local Act, I cannot stand idly by and let a small minority of local governments bully providers of workforce housing.

With that in mind, I will be heading a group to advocate on behalf of the Live Local Act and its new permissions. The Live Local Alliance will look for opportunities to build a framework for the homebuilding industry to work with state and local governments to address our housing issues collaboratively, including making necessary technical changes to the legislation.

We must remind people why this new law was enacted and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who deserves credit for pushing workforce housing and down payment assistance programs since his first year in office. And we will give a voice to Floridians who believe that we need to do more to help our workforce live their lives how they choose, without spending hours commuting from other towns just to make a living. Our children’s future here in Florida depends on it.

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This piece was originally posted in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Trey Price served as Executive Director of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation from 2017-2023. A second generation Floridian, he and his family live in Tallahassee. He can be reached via email at [email protected].