Prioritizing affordable housing while adhering to hardened construction codes to guard against storms like Hurricane Ian were paramount bullet points that came out of the third public meeting held by Resilient Lee’s housing branch.
With 70% of the federal government’s $1.1 billion in grant money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development slated to go toward housing, there were 18 people seated at the table for the meeting Tuesday afternoon at the Collaboratory building in downtown Fort Myers, in addition to 13 members of the public.
For more than 90 minutes, they discussed priorities regarding affordable housing – and the lack of it – for Lee County’s median-income families. However, there were no concrete recommendations made as to how much money to spend or where and how to spend it.
That won’t happen until after the housing branch meets again June 6, said Gary Griffin, CEO of B&I Contractors, which helped build the Gulf Coast Medical Center expansion in south Fort Myers among many other area construction projects. Griffin was appointed to lead the housing task force by Resilient Lee chairman and Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane because of his background volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.
The housing branch task force wants to reach out to zoning experts, apartment developers, building code officials, experts in community land trust policy and Lee County housing partners on how to proceed.
Gary Griffin
“Now the land-use changes and the way it can impact increased density and other things, those are really the innovations that are going to allow us to deliver more housing,” Griffin said. “There’s pros and cons to that. You have more density, it can harm the quality of life of the neighborhood, but it is a way to reduce the price to where people can have access to a home that’s in a neighborhood they want to live in.”
Reducing impact fees and other development costs, providing financial assistance to developer and developing community land trusts were topics on the table to boost affordable housing in the county.
The forthcoming infusion of federal money isn’t seen as checks that can be written to developers, Griffin said. Those developers must be vetted and show commitment to the area.
“What we’re going to say is if you can show a project that moves the needle and makes housing units available that meet our goals, whether it’s for workforce, whether it’s for seniors, whether it’s for homeless, we’re going to make sure you have an opportunity to access that funding, as long as you can prove that you’re really helping us solve the problem,” Griffin said.
The housing task force will meet again at 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 6, at the Collaboratory.
“The next phase we’re going to get into in June, is going to be diving down and creating subject matter experts and really putting together an action plan to go out and try to set up activities that will move us toward our goals as a group,” Griffin said.
