City Commission - workshop

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the Fort Lauderdale City Commission joint workshop with the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. I want to thank you all for being here today and I want to first of all thank you for all the good work that you do during the course of the year and all the advice that you give us and how important it is that we continue to find opportunities for affordable housing. I want to say I want to compliment the commission and city staff for the great work that we have already accomplished in finding opportunities for affordable housing, both within the CRA and outside the CRA. And how I think Fort Lauderdale stands out as an example for others to follow in terms of trying to find affordable housing at all levels of income here in our city. So having said that, I'll turn the chair over the, not the chair, I'll turn the item over to the city manager.

City manager.

Oh,

do the roll? Okay. Good idea. So, mister clerk, please, please take the role of the commission.

Yes. Vice mayor Herpes is not present at the moment. Commissioner Glassman? Here. Commissioner Beasley Pittman? Here. Commissioner Sorensen? Here. Mayor Trent Ellis?

Yes. And, now would you please take the role of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee? Chair, Susan Sprague?

Sprague? Willie McKay? Present. Chantel Jerome? Here. Mr. Beasley Pittman.

Here. William

Condon. Here. Eric Lakire. Here. It's Aaron Lakire, sorry. Augustina Sklar. Amanda Wilson and Rich DiGirolamo.

Right. Better late than never.

David, I'm sorry. McKay, she is here. She stepped out. I don't know if

she did? Okay.

She's in the she's she was with us earlier, so she's somewhere. Okay. Thank you. If you could recognize her as as present.

Okay. Now city manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor and commissioners. I have the distinct pleasure of attending a recent meeting of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, and I can attest to the tremendous work that they are doing as a committee and engaged they are in the work that we're doing as a city to promote affordable housing. Ms. Rachel Williams in the Housing and Community Development Division will lead the presentation and Chair Sprague as well as other members of the committee are available to share information, recommendations, and we're looking to get some feedback from the commission so we can determine the next steps in terms of policy direction.

So at this time, miss Rachel Williams will come forward. Good afternoon.

If you could just push the button at the bottom. Great. Thank you.

Good afternoon, mayor and commissioners, city leadership, and AHAC members. I'm Rachel Williams, housing and community development manager. And today, I'm here just to present an overview of the topics that will be discussed by the AHAC. And the AHAC, along with staff, will seek your feedback and directions on the incentives presented. But before I go on, I'd like to acknowledge members from the Housing and Community Development team that are present here with me today.

I have with me Assistant Housing and Community Development Manager, Olivet Carter and our very newly appointed planner, Amanda, her first day in HCD. Okay. So today, the AHAC will discuss, three primary incentives and staff will also seek direction on two prior incentives that were discussed with the Commission. The three incentives to be discussed today are: one, to increase public awareness and education on affordable housing activities, the use of city owned land for affordable housing, to develop an affordable housing master plan. And I will hand over to Chair Sprague, a queue, I'm going from there which will lead the AHAC team in further discussing those incentives.

And then from there, we will seek the Commission's feedback on implementation of the incentives discussed, having a discussion around accessory dwelling unit policies and waiver of impact fees for affordable housing. Under public awareness and education, which is the first incentive that will be discussed, AHAC will seek input on how can we increase communication and marketing to city residents on rental and homeownership opportunities. They will also seek to explore partnerships to provide workshops for first time homebuyers and research income and application requirements of new developments and provide information to the public. But before I hand over this item to the AHAC, I'd like to explain to the Commission some of the programs we already have in place addressing some of these items. The city does some level of marketing on all housing activities that are funded through housing and community development.

We have purchase assistance, housing rehabilitation and rent assistance. Those are promoted through our Stratcom teams. We have marketing material which is shared with our nonprofits and also with our first time homebuyers, they have to go through a HUD certified housing counseling and those agencies that are HUD certified in the community are well aware and they do promote these items. On incentive two, the use of city owned land for affordable housing. The AHAC will review the city's process for determining the use of city owned property for developments with 15% to 20% of the units targeting households at 50% AMI or at 50% area median income.

Currently, we utilize both the tax credits and the SHIP guidelines to identify properties that would meet this set aside. And currently, are doing that three times a year. I believe in our last discussion with the AHAC, they suggested that we up that to annually. So this would be a part of that discussion.

Let's talk about that. We're going get a lot of pushback from the people who live in single family home neighborhoods who will not want smaller lot sizes for residential development because they feel that's just going to degrade the quality of life that they currently appreciate by having already bought in those neighborhoods? How do respond to that?

Okay. So this is where I'll hand over to the AHAC so that they can explain their thought process and recommend some value that they believe that that particular incentive will have for the community. Chair Sprague?

Thank you. This particular incentive came out of, and it's an expansion of the preparation of a printed inventory of locally owned public lands that are suitable for affordable housing. It's on Page 13 of our 2025 report. And what we felt important is to review and refine the property evaluation process. We think that recommendations should be made to improve the transparency, consistency and alignment with affordable housing goals.

And for the last, five years, there have been no public lands identified as suitable, so the list has nothing on it. And what we're asking for is an expansion of that to take a look at different parameters for that. And also, along with Florida statute, it now says that affordable housing development can be on parcels zoned for commercial or industrial use. And we're recommending that we expand that review to them, especially where there's multiple small adjoining parcels that could be aggregated to meet development thresholds. Yes.

We're talking about smaller lot sizes. I'm not we're not saying go from a 6,000 or 7,000 square foot lot down to 2,000, but, there are just some opportunities to revisit that. Now yes, you might depending on where it is get some that, but realizing that we need to expand residences, for people who work here, live here in the idea of perhaps smaller homes. So looking at stuff for mixed income or providing units for lower income AMI households, that may be a strategy to get to that point.

Well, okay, that's in techno jargon, I understand what you're saying, but in practicality, how does this work? So let's say we have a neighborhood called, I don't know, pick River Oaks, okay, and there's an empty lot there. And according to the current zoning, it only permits one single family home there. Are you suggesting that we cut that lot in half and allow two single family homes or a townhouse? Give us some idea of what you folks are thinking of because we have to answer to the residents and they're going to wonder, they're going to say, oh, here we have overdevelopment.

You're imposing overdevelopment on single family home neighborhoods. This is what you told us you weren't going to do and now we're suffering, because you folks want to create affordable housing.

And also, Mayor, to elaborate a little bit before one of the members come forward is this is saying a lot in the smaller lots to be utilized. Not saying we're gonna take a lot and make it smaller. There are lots in communities that, may not at this point meet that opportunity, or meet the zoning for a a standard house size. Because we have we know for a lot of it, we have those lots that are oddly shaped. They're smaller. And this is what we say changes only regulations to allow those smaller lot sizes. That is the direction that we were going in. But I'm gonna also yield to Yes.

Can you push the can you push the button? I don't know why we have that system where

It's on off

now I'm on? You're on.

Oh, it was on. Yeah. I think I didn't say anything prior. Rich DiGerama, member of the board. I would say in addition to that, there are small lots and they want green space on the neighborhoods of the neighborhood boards, we completely understand that. Maybe that's something. I'm not saying that we're going to build lot to lot. I don't think a developer would build lot line to lot line, a development that goes vertical on a small lot. But we also discussed opportunities even on the commercial side. I'm involved in that every day. We don't have a ton of incentives and a ton of ways to subsidize affordable housing as a city as you all know. You know how the process works. Typically at the state level, the county level, then the city level.

We do. Do.

One of

the levers We tax incentives.

I understand. But I don't know that it's at the level that the federal and the state and the county can to some of these larger developers. We we do everything we can, but one of the things we do have is possession of real estate. We have land. So we're arguably probably the best and most friendly P3 city in the state, if not the country.

And I think along the lines of this point is to also maybe take a look at why we don't have some initiatives with the private sector on building affordable housing on some privately owned land or and land owned by the city. So we just wanted to maybe have these things database and be able to review them. And we're not saying that anyone's going to force anybody's hand, but we think it's worth having this thing database and reviewed so that we can look at these things. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to shut it down without at least having an overview and be able to look at this because I think as a city, don't know if you've explored p3s with affordable housing developers, but we think there's an opportunity there to create more housing. I know the single family side is tough as well, but maybe there's opportunities to build single families on some of our commercial land.

That was sort of some of the point where this was going as well. Does that make do you have any feedback on that or?

Well, think let me first hear your total presentation.

No problem. Go back. Before we jump into that, Chris, what's our lot sizes in our zoning code these days? I'm sorry.

Yes. So for a single family lot, we have our RSA and RS4.4 zoning districts. I think what the Board is looking at, and I don't have the specific dimensions in front of me, but we have a lot size square footage that has a minimum. I think it's around 6,000 square feet. And then we have a lot with minimum.

So what we see a lot of is that you may have some lots that are undersized in one of those, but maybe not both. So you could have a narrow lot that meets the minimum square footage, but it doesn't meet the minimum width. So there's a process by which the Board of Adjustment can grant a variance to go a little bit smaller than the minimum size or the width of that lot. So there are processes in place and perhaps maybe a way to work this in a way that meets the goals of the committee and also I think the intent of our neighbors in our community that have investment in one of these neighborhoods and expect a certain lot is that that Board of Adjustment process includes criteria affordable housing, which could then be restricted on that lot or part of the variance given that it's restricted to some level of affordability. I think we need to develop a program and a plan, but part of today is getting the feedback from the commission and the committee what you like and what you think is worth pursuing and coming back with a policy for consideration in the future.

Okay. Good. So ours is a standard the smallest building lots basically are 6,000 square feet. Thereabout, yes. Okay.

And that's fairly typical for a post World War II construction, right? Yes. So when you look at a lot of, say, pre-1920s era housing, you're looking at lot sizes that are more like 2,500 square foot and smaller. If you look at a lot of more dense neighborhoods, think New Orleans, for example, right, you have much smaller lot sizes, more akin to denser urban environments, smaller houses, typically 1,000 square foot and so forth. And you're seeing post World War II much larger lots and that's when you start to see sort of the beginning of the affordability crisis in this country as we move more towards the single family neighborhood, suburban sprawl and so forth.

I really think we need to start thinking about denser neighborhoods, smaller lot sizes, smaller homes, more affordable homes. I think there's no way out of that. And I think that's the trend that you're seeing. I think you're seeing that in California. I think you're seeing in other places.

And I think we have to collectively as a society start getting back to that. When we look at average house sizes of 2,000, 2,500 square foot, I think about the houses I grew up in Queens, the typical all in the family Archie Bunker house, that was a 1,400 square foot house, one bathroom, five or six people in the house, the house I grew up in, five, three boys, two parents, one bathroom. We all managed to make it work somehow. I think we need to start thinking more along those terms. I had three boys and a sister And I'm sure she got priority and we make it work. You're looking at three threes with two car garages. And we wonder why we have an affordability crisis.

Yes. And I think a lot of what the AHAC just articulated is looking at some of those city owned and infill lots that we have in our neighborhoods. We'll often have smaller lots that maybe were left over from something else that could be developable, but it needs some relief from our code to make that happen. We can look at that as well. And for the city owned parcels, what I will say is that we do annually look at our city owned properties for surplus potential.

That includes both residential and commercially zoned now for residential because of Live Local and there are opportunities now to do either mixed use or Live Local on those properties. Frankly, we don't have a lot of city owned parcels. We used to get a lot through tax certificates and tax defaults, and we don't see that as much anymore. A lot of our infill in some neighborhoods were part of those transitions from one from the property owner to us. So we do have a process and we'll continue to do that and we'll certainly can engage AHEC on some

of that feedback as well when we do those annual reviews. And Chris, question on that. So I like this idea. I think that incentivizing building more workforce affordable makes a lot of sense. Would the allowance for that variance be tied to necessitating affordable workforce on that law?

I think that's a policy decision, but when you're looking at a justification for a variance, on a piece of land that may be something that we should consider as a reason for variance to deviate from our land development regulations. But we'll work with the attorney's office if that's the direction of the commission and see if that is a policy we can bring back to you.

Yeah. I think that'd be great. I think I like offering that incentive and then further the idea of because regularly I'll have affordable workforce housing developers come to me and say, can we see a list of all the city owned property? And you and I have worked on this in in the past. So I love the idea of adding commercial and industrial use in there as well, which if I'm understanding right now, we don't have those included.

So we do as part of our annual review. We just don't have a lot of it, if any.

So

obviously, with LiveLocal, there's opportunities. And when the city owns the parcel, there's some level of control over that redevelopment if we, craft that into the lease or the condition of sale or transfer, but also mixed use. I don't want people to forget that mixed use development is also available on a lot of our commercial properties as well. So live local is not the only option in those cases.

Right. And then I think also for the incentive of the lot, part of it would be, look, affordable and workforce housing can also be one single family home. Sure. Right. So we obviously wouldn't want to overburden in density. So we would have to follow the kind of some of the underlying zoning conditions there.

Yes. One area we've been successful is in our CRA. The city surplus or transferred city owned parcels that were infill lots within the Cistrunk area in the Northwest Progressive CRA. And those were developed for affordable housing through our CRA through city funding as an incentive, but also partnership with those developers make sure those go to people that are in need of affordable housing and qualify for those those homes.

Commissioner?

Great.

Yeah. I would also wanna consider the affordability period. So the time frame by which that development would need to remain affordable or workforce. And so that's something that I think should be considered as we develop any sort of incentive program.

Yep. I agree. And I also like the target that you're you all are suggesting of this 50% AMI because as you all know, LiveLocal's 120%, which, I think this is a much better, working definition of where we need to go and and what we need to incentivize.

Great. And along the lines of lot sizes, I will have a little bit of an update later on our ADU efforts, our accessory dwelling unit efforts. And part of that conversation is things we'll need to work on with the minimum lot size where an ADU can be placed. So there's some connection to this recommendation as well as that update later in the presentation.

Chris, I was just gonna actually ask you about that, the accessory dwelling units. But what's the latest coming out of Tallahassee? Are you aware of what the latest is with that?

So I am. We have Daphne Sainville here. We can go through that now, but it's also part of our legislative update this afternoon. Gotcha.

I'm good. Thank you. But we are we are working on it as well. Right? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Mayor. Yes. If I can ask, I'm not sure if, I have concerns that neighbors and maybe the general public overall is not familiar with the breakdown of the m the AMI. What is 50% in dollar value? What is $1.20 in dollar value?

I'm I'm I'm I know that the 50%, we know it to be 45,900 for a family of four. Okay? So that's given us an indication of how low of a income that, the neighbors are, living in trying to thrive with. And I think it's very important when we talk about the AMI that we give a value to the percentage because the average person do not know what that percentage is, just moving forward with that. Okay.

Thank you.

So just to follow-up on what Chris just said, you know, the city is already engaged in a program of providing infill lots to developers who came in and built houses for that were more affordable. And so it's not like this is a new concept to the city. We have already started this process. The thing is that we've used them all up. There aren't that many left because we've been doing this for several years now.

So the question is where do we take that program from here? Once the city uses up all these infill lots, does that program, that type of approach have any future here in our city because right now the only city lots that I'm familiar with are would be larger lots, large that might be intended for multifamily or mixed use development. So just keep that in mind as we go forward. And also well, just keep that in mind as we go forward.

Yes, think that's a great point. I mean looking prospectively, there's going to be times we do get these lots, they may not come as frequently as we used to. But I think what we're hearing from AHEC is as we're having those conversations, that annual evaluation, they'd like to be part of that if they're not already and be able to give their opinions and thoughts on some of those parcels as potential redevelopment for affordable housing.

Great. Thank you. Okay, Rachel, sorry.

So let's see if we can get back on track. So we discussed incentive two before we did incentive one. So we're going to I'm going to hand over to, Chair Sprague to go back to incentive one, public awareness and education, so that the AHAC can, explain to you where they're coming from, their insight and what the value would be to the community.

Thank you. This, is actually an expansion or clarification of one of our, extraneous recommendations, not part of the 11 required by statute. And we have been hearing that city residents are not aware of opportunities to rent or purchase new units that are being made available or when they do learn of the housing, it's already filled or sold out.

So So someone's someone's know someone knows what's

going Someone knows. Not everybody.

I mean, we've never had we've never we don't have any units sitting sitting idle begging for people to come to them. There's always a waiting list. So somehow the word's getting out. You're doing a good job by the way. It's the word's getting out there.

So we are recommending increased communication and marketing to residents and offering opportunities to increase their knowledge and financial readiness, so that can mutually benefit the city and its residents. And with changes being made to housing programs at the federal level, increased information and interaction can help our neighbors make the best choices and decisions. And I especially like that last bullet, which is, having staff pull together income and application requirements of new developments have that available to give to, people that are considering, renting or purchasing. And I think Rachel may have a little bit more insight.

Okay. So, if the commission directs us to do that, we could definitely reach out to developers, to see if we can get this information ahead of time. A lot of the affordable housing developers that are not incentivized, by the city, often they are hesitant about releasing this information. The developers, of course, who are incentivized by the city, they typically do provide this information and we try to get it out to the public. But as we know, the inventory is not anywhere the demand is. So these units get filled up really quickly and because of that you still get complaints of people not being aware of it.

So

is there any specific directives that you'd like?

Well, what of approach do you think that the commission should recommend to get the word out that there's an opportunity for an affordable housing unit that's about to you know become available. How do you propose getting the word out? I mean the word is out anyway. So there's some people that are that are being that are that are sort of left out of the process because they're not I don't know whether they can learn it through their churches, through the schools, know. What are the what other way because it's not like it's the problem is not that people don't know about it.

The problem is certain people are not being made aware of what's going on.

Yes. So I think it's twofold. One, I think it's our awareness of these developments and as Rachel mentioned when we incentivize something or we're part of that process, we know well in advance of what the affordability levels are in these developments and what's available. We often know that it's there's not a lot that are done without our knowledge. But one thing we can do is leverage our strategic communications. We cast a wide net with that already both through our city channels and also through each of your individual channels that you help us promote information and city information on. So I'll let Kevin Paleto talk a little bit about where we may be able to assist in that effort.

Hi. Good afternoon. Kevin Paleto, director of strategic communications. So to the merits point, there are a lot of different opportunities, that we could leverage in terms of working with our civic associations and HOAs and groups, getting them the information of these new developments that are coming forward. There is a huge request for affordable housing in our community that I'm sure you all receive every day. So utilizing our social media channels in addition to, citywide emails, and just sharing all the different opportunities, and we could definitely target them into the different neighborhoods to make sure, any projects that are coming forward that has an affordable housing component, we could go ahead and promote that through city channels and different ways for people to apply.

And Kevin, also with that, I don't know if this falls on the strategic communications. Even, utilizing opportunity for electronic boards, I think that would be productive. Because most time when we have, developments go up, there's a little five by seven sign that goes in front of it. And if you're driving, you don't see it. Most of time, if you're passing, you don't necessarily see it.

But we can be, in in our opinion, as as a board that being more visible and making things more obvious to also because, yes, we're we're going through a check through checklist of what we're doing. But if we're not targeting or let me rephrase that. If we're not capturing the audience, we're missing the point. And if everyone if if the majority who are capturing that information are outside of the city of Fort Lauderdale, that also brings some concerns to us overall because we do also want to service neighbors as much as we can. First, because we have that situation with so many neighbors are what they call couch surfing and they're looking for homes in the area.

They want to live in the city. So I wanna add that to the list.

Definitely. We'll definitely utilize that. Something we did for neighbor support night was, electronic messaging boards throughout the city. And I think you're right. As you drive through some of these developments, you don't know there's an affordable housing component. So we'll work with the team to make sure to incorporate something like that.

May I have another thought? Great. And city manager, one other suggestion is, so when once we update the city owned surplus parcel list, I'd love to be able to get an email from Citi team saying here's a list, here's the kind of incentive program or here's how to pursue these properties. Then I'd love to be able to get that email and then push that out to our list as well. So that there's immediate ability to say, hey, let me look through this and there's something in my neighborhood. Then maybe a neighbor would be interested in buying and leveraging some of the incentives here.

Would you consider maybe a quarterly update on what's in the pipeline? What's coming up? What's been approved? How many units? That sort of model so that it's not based on an email that isn't necessarily on a cycle, but we can share that periodically on a consistent basis. So you know what to expect from staff in terms of pushing the information out.

Agree. I think that makes sense. And here is the existing list of city owned parcels that the city would be open towards partnering for affordable and workforce housing development.

Think that's feasible.

Thank you.

And in regards also, we're still talking about the public awareness and education piece. Talking about the workshops for the first time homeowners, how, we as a city I know that we have nonprofits that take on that role as well, but I think there's an opportunity for us as a city to have a night or a week or a series of, first time homebuyers opportunity because we we what is our slogan? Live here, love here, play here. What's the proper term, mayor? Give it to me. We would love to

come on.

It's the place you

never wanna leave.

Not only that, and the other one we say we the place you love to live, work, and play. Right. Okay. So we wanna live, work, and play here. We wanna make sure that we're giving that opportunity not only to, come and buy the homes, but we want our, those our staff that works here. We wanna give them the opportunity also to be actually neighbors in the city that they give their heart and soul to.

You got that?

Okay.

So we've got that and we'll make sure that things happen differently. Now we're going to move on to incentive number three, which the AHAC is recommending that we develop an affordable housing master plan. And I'll hand it over to Chair Sprague to explain. Currently, the city does have a comprehensive plan which has a housing element, which as staff, we use that as our guide in terms of, projects that we are undertaking. And so I'm going to hand over to Chair Sprague for more development on why the AHAC is recommending a standalone, affordable housing master plan.

Thank you. That's, something that's been in, recommendations the last couple of years. We are finding that there is not a lot of information specific to the city of Fort Lauderdale in terms of its, demographics, housing criteria, capabilities, demand, and such. And just this morning at the city commit, the county commission, they were entertaining a resolution to update their 2022 affordable housing needs assessment done by the Metropolitan Center at FAU. And that formed the basis for their ten year Housing Broward affordable housing master plan.

And so if we can do something they they lightly deal with municipalities, but there is not a lot of information. If we can have more of this, then we can probably be more strategic in coming up with a comprehensive policy. And also to add to that, we are so proud that the Fort Lauderdale AHAC was selected for many, applicants by the Florida Housing Coalition for a support initiative. There's four of them and that's going to take us to a new level and thank you to Olivette Carter, for writing that proposal and getting us into that cohort, which is going to be it started already and it's going to be running through June. And they are going to take an in-depth analysis of land development regulations, look as looking at our prior AHAC reports, our housing policies, and such.

And they're actually going to be giving us recommendations on how we can be most effective, best practices and affordable housing policy priorities and then prioritize the focuses and brainstorm ideas. So that will be happening at the same time, and it may affect our recommendations specifically for assessing current and future housing needs and the market conditions and affordability. But we certainly would like to reach out to options and partnerships with employers to encourage expanding affordable housing inventory to attract and retain workers as well as to support city staff and their needs for attainable housing in the area where they work. So that's that was our our thought point on that. If we have that information, if we can actually have our own plan, I know there's housing elements and other parts in there, but we felt that it would be important to, do these studies, to develop a master plan for the city.

Any comments? Yes, Mayor.

Go ahead.

I think it's a great idea, another very good idea. City manager, any sense of cost what this would be to develop this affordable housing master plan?

I'll defer to staff on that. I think it depends on how comprehensive of a master plan it would be. We do have, as mentioned by the chair, some other plans with elements that speak to affordable and workforce housing. So in my estimation, I think it just depends on how deep of a dial we would want to do or if we would want to kind of leverage the information that we already have whether through the county or our own existing plans, to see if we can sort of bridge the gap there. So I defer to staff. I don't know if they've done any preliminary research on what a plan would cost.

Not specifically an affordable housing master plan, but every five years you know we have to do that HUD consolidated plan which sections of these that's listed here are elements of that plan too. And just the housing needs assessment component, the last time we did one in 2019, cost us at that time $60,000 So with inflation and different things added, it should be somewhere upwards

of that.

Well, let me just ask this. I mean, every time the county or the state or the federal government does a needs assessment on affordable housing, it's always like crazy numbers, you know, like a third of the of the county can't afford to live here. Alright? And in fact, over the weekend, I was reading an article in the Miami Herald where they specifically speak to the unaffordability of housing in South Florida. So we know already, we don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a study because we already know that there's a crisis for affordability.

Secondly, most of the affordable housing projects that the city has participated in are usually developer driven. In other words, the developer comes to us and says they want to build an affordable housing project And based on the cost of the land and based on the cost of construction, they can and then whatever incentives can be provided either through tax incentives or city incentives or both, then it becomes a right combination that allows them to go forward and make a profit on this. Okay. What is how does the city go about creating, its own needs assessment, and also a master plan? Do we go around and say, oh, we should put a place here.

We should put a place here. It's not up to us. It's really up to the up to the up to the developer to make those choices. Correct?

That is correct, Mayor. But if I might add or speak on behalf of the AHAP based on the discussions that we've been having. Your analogy is correct. However, I believe the component of affordability that we're not wrapping our hands around fully is that 50% AMI and below. And most of the developers who come to the table, are looking to serve 120% up to 140% AMI.

Right. You're absolutely correct. It's the 80% to 120 bracket that seems to be capture everyone's attention. LiveLocal in fact speaks to that. They don't talk to below the 80% or the 50%. There were a couple like the one we just recently did the groundbreaking on with New Hope. Yeah, that was only like was that 55?

I believe so.

Yeah. So there are projects that the city has incentivized that are lower income, lower than the 80% to 120%. And it's tough because the amount of income that you receive on that is going to is and the cost of construction, it creates a very narrow gap of opportunity there where there's not a lot of incentive for a developer to go in there, especially if it's going to be a forever requirement as opposed to a ten year requirement or a twenty year requirement. So again, help us out here. We're trying to definitely would love to see more new construction that allows for a lower income housing, that gives people a hand up trying to get their college kids who come out of college and want to come back to Fort Lauderdale and they get a job.

You go get a bank job and you're getting $30,000 a year, okay? You fit in an affordable lower income affordable housing qualification. And so we want to provide that kind of housing for young people to come back to their homes where they went away to college and now they don't want to live with their parents. I get that. And And nor do their parents want to live with them. They just figured it's time to get on

the Speak for yourself, Nir. Speak for yourself. Yes.

But but you know these these are you know, it's it's a challenge. It's a challenge trying to find the right partner that the city can work with in order to provide the lower income housing opportunities for people here. Because like you say, most of these so called affordable housing projects are 80 to 120% average median income and that's pretty high. It's not all that affordable. So anyway

And Mary, if I can add to this in conversations we've had, many of our developers are repeat developers in the city. And they are they are doing well. They're doing well, and and we don't see it inappropriate to also include them in a conversation to have affordable housing. If you have built I'm just throwing numbers out there. If you built five luxury projects, how does that damage or hurt your profit if you are willing to do something that's gonna benefit mankind? It's a conversation, but it's a conversation. So I wanna

be don't where that meeting.

Yeah. Yeah. But my point is our point is if if we don't ask the question, we may not even get the opportunity. It's nothing wrong with bringing that to the to the table. They will make the decision but they will understand that we are as a city requiring more than just to come in and you get it, you hit it and you leave.

Right. Okay. You're an advisory board.

You're supposed to be helping us.

And to the mayor, I'm gonna hand over back to chairs Prague, just a component that we need to consider is when we're looking at this population, it's the population that is most at risk for homelessness. That's the population that drives homelessness. And we're looking for policy guidance as to what kind of policy this, commission would be comfortable with us attaching, especially for the projects that we're giving some kind of incentive that we're incentivizing as a city so that we are better doing a better job of targeting that population.

Totally get it.

Didn't Margie Northgard Northgard, have a she do an op ed piece about, in the Sun Sentinel this weekend. She's a local architect who speaks about affordable housing and lower income housing. And what incentives that we as a city can provide or cities in general can provide as our way of partnering with private development in order to accomplish these goals. It's an interesting article.

Rachel, sorry. Are you asking what percent AMI do we want to focus on or I'm not?

Not specifically what percent, but if I may speak and if I'm speaking out of turn, board members please correct me. But having a policy where we can attach the AMI that we would like to target when we're incentivizing projects.

Great. And so your question to us is what?

Is where would you like to see staff explore? Do you want us to focus 80% and below, 50% and below? Because we said we already have a market that's coming to us for the 80% and above. So where would you like to see us focus with the incentives that we can offer?

Got you. I mean, so just based off that, I think I'd love to hear you all's feedback, but is 80% below as the opportunity, but I defer to you all is that, yes. Chair, Madam Chair.

I believe that's acceptable, but we also definitely want to look at the lower end of that. But, up to 80%, I believe, is okay in what we've been looking at. And then in addition,

what percentage of the overall total number of units would we like to focus on, let's say, any project that might be mixed income? If we're going to focus on 80 AMI and below, are we looking at 15% of the total units, 20% of the total units, 25%? That sort of target might be helpful from a policy standpoint.

Yes, sure. Defer to you all, mean, so maybe we start thinking about 50% and then I turn it over to you all if that's too high or too low.

I think we should start at 40%, 40% to 60% AMI as the target. I think a lot of projects are done. I the New Hope is 40% to 60%, but not the entire project. You mix it Right.

I

agree. So that there's a mixed income. So 40% to 60% should be a certain percentage and 60% to 80% and then 80 to 120%. The larger the project the better. But I do think that we're looking at all demographics and all income levels to try to incentivize people to stay in Fort Lauderdale because we don't too often we see people coming here and then having to leave because they can't afford to live whatever we can do to try to prevent that from happening, prevent that flight from occurring, I think it's a big job.

And as Rachel said, this also dovetails with homelessness. And we don't want to see homeless people unnecessarily forced out in the streets because they can't afford, you know, their housing even though they're working. Mhmm.

And then and also with that mayor truly identifying and and knowing the demographics. We didn't really go into that, but we have a large population of our seniors citizens now who are, for whatever reason, what they have experienced. Now they are the individuals who we are seeing, sleeping in cars or It's

it's true.

And and and it's a whole it's a whole you know, because a lot of times we get boxed in in what we think homelessness is or what we think, affordable housing is and who's utilizing it. But we have to understand it's not what what it may have been ten years ago. It's it's totally different now, and we need to look at it at a broader scope to make sure that we're given opportunity across the board. Because, you know, we used to say, you know, most of us are one paycheck from being in that position. And if we're honest, we are most us us are one paycheck from that opportunity.

So if we, as a commission, could, move in the direction of what's being presented by the, advisory board here, I think we will be giving a great, statement to, the county. Let them know that we're we're doing some things that are gonna make a difference in this county, and then also letting our neighbors know that we understand what they're going through, and we're not just saying continue to build luxury condos. And we're looking for an opportunity to be a city that is meeting the needs of our neighbors.

Well said.

Agreed. So then I think what we're what I'm hearing is maybe let's focus on 40% to 60% of AMI, 40 to 60% of AMI, and is it fair to say let's aim for 50% of the units in a development to be 40% to 60% AMI? Might not be realistic. Is that too high? You want to go? Yes.

What is too high? I'll let Chris respond to that. Yeah. That might be too high. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think the 50% may be a little high for that interim threshold. I think when we're seeing developments come in

Well, I'm talking about AMI. Yes. But you're

saying 50% of the buildings will

be done.

Yes. So when we

see projects come in right now that are mixed income, I think the mayor made the point that we don't necessarily see a lot of the entirety of the project being of a certain income level, but we're seeing mixed income. The 50% below 60% may be a high mark. So what we're typically seeing is some that are below 60%, but some that are below 101120%. So we're seeing kind of that strata of affordability. So it's difficult to prescribe the amount.

We've got some precedent with LiveLocal, which is 40% just affordable, but that's up to 120. And then we have some of our internal policies and incentives that for height and density and things like that, where we're around that 15% low income. So you know, think it's again, it's hard to put a number or percentage on it, but I think 50% is probably a little bit higher than we would expect to see in a project that would financially work out without a lot of other incentives or tax

I'd to recommend a target of 20% give or take depending on the feasibility of the project. We would want to see the pro form a for any project coming forward that's looking for a subsidy from the city and identify whether the project may be able to accommodate that percentage. I think today to say that a project, any project would be required to have a certain percentage without knowing the entirety of the details of the deal, the number of units and what it would take to produce each unit, I think it's challenging to come up with that percentage. But I think if we could look at a target and aim for perhaps 20% if this commission is desirable of that on the AHAC as well. I know we have 15% to 20% in the backup materials, but I think a target is something that we should be working toward, not necessarily a defined percentage at this time.

Yes. That sounds good.

I like that. And I was going to say before city manager, began to share with us that as long as we were moving away from that 10%, I don't we don't feel that the 10% is as productive, and we can look at a target, but nowhere near the 10% that we're seeing today. We definitely need to move away from that 10% requirement.

Yes. And what the manager described is similar to how we intake and review the applications for our tax credit program that the commission's approved a couple projects to use where we do get the pro form a, we get a gap analysis, we get a real thorough understanding of what can be provided, what works out financially and where we can come to an agreement on what level of incentive works for the level of return we're getting in affordable housing. So we have a good template available for that process.

Okay.

Sounds good. Very good.

So I did have a couple of quick things I wanted to bring to the commission's attention at AHAC. One, AHAC has been working on one. I'd just like to get your, feedback on whether or not it's worth pursuing. First is our accessory dwelling unit policy. So back in June 2025, when you had a joint workshop with the affordable housing advisory committee, we set out on a plan to develop an accessory dwelling unit action plan and the AHAC has done a wonderful job in conjunction with our housing and community development division within our CS Community Services Department and our Development Services Department on coming up with four key goals and work towards that action plan.

So just for your information today is those goals are, develop an accessory dwelling unit education guide. One thing we heard is that people just don't know or they're not informed on the potential for accessory dwelling units here in the city of Fort Lauderdale, which we do have a fairly permissive code on, and there is some opportunity to build those types of units. One is working on preapproved ADU plans, so to try to cut through some of the process and the cost, have some architectural designs that could be either, tweaked a little bit to accommodate site specifics or ready to go so that it can cut through some of the costs in developing an affordable accessory dwelling unit, as well as some code updates. As I said, we have a fairly permissive code when it comes to accessory dwelling units, but there are some things that can be done, including removing some outdated language in our code as well as opening up accessory dwelling units to our annexed areas where that's not really a consideration. And then we think there's some opportunities for accessory dwelling units in those areas that were annexed from Broward County, as well as parking.

Parking can be a limited factor for ADUs. We do require a parking space for the accessory unit. There may be cases where there's enough parking to accommodate it or the situation allows for the ADU to be built with existing parking without overburdening the neighborhood with additional on street parking or parking in swales and things like that. And also to develop an accessory dwelling unit tracking system, especially for affordability. That's something that if we have a policy around it, we want to make sure that one, the policy is meeting its objectives, but we also have a clear understanding of how well our policy is being used throughout the community.

So we expect to bring back those items through AHEC and through the commission as we develop those policies. There's going to be some guidance and some approvals we'll need from you as a commission at some point to implement that. But I did want to update you on the work that's gone into that both by the AHEC and our city staff.

Chris, one thing on that. I know the legislature is working on ADUs with one of the things that's incredibly important to me. Know I spoke to representative Lamarck about this and Senator Pizzo is making sure that ADUs can't be used for short term rentals. And I know that's one of the things that's making its way into at least one of the iterations that I've seen that it has to be at least thirty day rentals. So, I'm sure we're tracking all this, but let's not get ahead of ourselves in writing anything until we see what the legislature does.

Yes. And one thought is that if the city is providing any sort of incentive, whether it's financial to build the ADU where there's opportunities to restrict that for use as an affordable unit or something of the some other use that we think is worthwhile that if we're providing something, we have an opportunity to make sure even outside of legislation that it's not being used for something like that. But loud and clear, I think that's been a big fear of incentivizing or promoting ADUs is that they could be used something more like a short term rental rather than what it's intended to be, which is either for a relative to live in an agent place or potentially somebody else living there or an affordable unit for somebody. So help me out here.

We have the ability to build an affordable excuse me, accessory dwelling unit, but don't we also have the right to restrict the use of it or has that been taken from us by the state? No, there's we cannot currently restrict an ADU just like

we can't restrict anything else from the short term housing and So rental as we're looking to expand the ADU coverage if you will, that has been expressed to our colleagues up at the state level that these could potentially, undermine the intent of the ADU and become more Airbnb's. And so they've been looking to address that in the legislation for ADUs because the goal of it is really to increase the availability of affordable housing, not to create more competition for hotels.

So do we have to allow for ADUs?

Or is

that is that

Yes. Our code currently permits it and it's it's something that we've you know, we've allowed in the past. There's been ADUs built in the city, know, recently and and we see them from time to time. So you know, I don't think we well, I think there is some legislation now that Daphne may be able to talk to us about that maybe

Well, my concern is that you know, the cost of building an accessory dwelling is not going to permit it to be used for affordable housing. So it's just Yes. We've seen

examples recently where that that's not necessarily the case. There's been a couple that have been permitted that have been reusing other materials such as shipping containers that have been reclad and surfaced and transitioned for around $4,050,000 dollars. So there are examples for the cost of those can be minimal.

Do we want to see railroad cars in people's backyards?

So you know They don't look

like They don't. They refurbish

There's some very very high end architectural designs with Okay. But I think I think mayor, one of the things and and you know, I've been having this conversation now for the better part of a couple of years because I was approached by a resident who's an architect who wanted to be able to put his mother into the backyard and was running into some challenges trying to do that. And so it led to a larger conversation about ADUs in Fort Lauderdale. And one of the things you see with it is, there are certain size restrictions on how big these things need to be and I think we really need this goes back to the conversation previously. We need to really be a little bit more open minded when we start thinking about ADUs.

You can get away with much smaller units than what I think our code contemplates. You know, you can do a studio apartment. We've talked, in the past, I remember when AHF was looking to build about micro units, three and four hundred square feet units are you know perfectly accessible. I know when my father was looking at an assisted living facility, he wasn't looking at 800 square feet. He was looking at a 200 square foot room in an assisted living facility.

So I think we need to be a little bit more broad minded when we think about you know, if I'm moving an elderly parent into an ADU adjacent to my house, they don't necessarily need or want 600 to 800 square feet. It might be a 200 square foot one bedroom. It could be something different. So I think we just need to again be a little more open minded, about what we are considering when we're looking at these units. Let's not be overly prescriptive in what we consider. And I think that's part of what we do as government is we're too prescriptive and we're not open to what works in the marketplace.

All right.

So the last thing, I know we're running short on time, so really I'm just looking for direction on whether or not it's something you'd like us to pursue. But, the state adopted legislation I think last year or the year before that allows for cities and counties to waive impact fees for affordable housing units or affordable housing developments. For the city of Fort Lauderdale, that means park impact fees and our water wastewater capital expansion fees. So if the commission's interested, we don't have a lot of details. We haven't built a policy around this.

But what I'm looking for today is just directional to whether or not you'd like us to work with your affordable housing advisory committee to come up with a policy around that to bring back to the commission for consideration. And when we look at everything from income levels, number of units, we'd make sure that it was crafted in a way similar to what you described earlier when you talked about how we incentivize affordable housing and some of those thresholds you've mentioned. But, really, it's just to seek direction even if you want us to move forward with something.

So Chris, this will be full waiver because traditionally we don't waive fees. We supplement them from the general fund because we believe this is an actual waiver. So state law would now permit us to actually waive fees. Okay.

That's right, Vice Mayor. So our code currently requires us to, so one of the amendments we'd have to make is to change that. But from a staff perspective, we do think there needs to be a program and process built around this that it would be part of a could be part of a layered incentivization program to where it may not work for every development or it may not be something the commission wants to do for every development. But if it's something that helps with GAAP financing or getting a project to fruition that it may be something the commission may want to consider on a case by case basis.

And it would only be for the portion of the project that was affordable. So if it was mixed income, you would still owe the impact fees for the portion that was not affordable.

Right. So the impact fee is for parks. What else?

So we have two. We have our park impact fees and then we have our capital expansion fees, which per the statute are considered an impact fee. So that's the additional level of service required for development above what the land currently has allocated towards it. So we assign that for water as well as wastewater. And these are all considerations that we think are important to think about as we create the policy. But we're at the point now where it's just seeking approval to even move forward looking at that as a policy consideration.

Chris, let me back you up on that one, I'm sorry. So I know that there's all kinds of covenants related to bonds associated with our water and wastewater systems. Have we explored how that might impact our bond covenants? We haven't yet, but

that is something that we're aware of and we know we need to cover in this process. Right. Because we've got all

these pledged revenues and I'm not sure that we can undo the bond covenants just because the state has given us the ability to waive the impact fees, our bond covenant would trump that. Let's just take a peek at that, talk to bond counsel.

Chris, do have any idea what level of revenues we're talking about in terms of waiving?

Yes. So I have an example for a project that included, 88 affordable units and these are well below 60% AMI. For the credit for those units, it would be about $148,000 for that project. So it would be a sizable incentive for development.

How much of that revenue are we talking about typically in a year for the city in terms of if we right now, we don't waive those fees.

We don't.

What what are those fees bringing in revenue wise right now in a year?

See if Yvette Mathews can help me out with that answer. But it's based on the speed of development, so it could vary year to year.

Good afternoon, Yvette Matthews, Assistant City Manager. So impact fees really vary from year to year depending upon the development of the year. So if we're looking at things like park impact fees, it could be anywhere from $2,000,000 in a year to upwards of $4,000,000 in a year depending upon the development that we're seeing in that year. So really, it varies from year to year. The same for our water and sewer impact fees, which help to, fund some of our expansion capital projects. Those amounts too vary from year to year. Sometimes they're upwards of $5,000,000 and sometimes as low as 1.8.

But we don't really know the percentage of that that's actually geared towards affordable housing.

That's correct.

I'm trying to just see that if we did move forward with this policy, for that kind of a subsidy or incentive, what roughly would be that dollar amount in fees that we would anticipate waiving?

Yeah.

So I think a really good way to look at that is to think about how much development we have in the city and what percentage of that would be affordable housing. I would assume it's a very small percentage, so it probably would not be a substantial impact on our impact fees.

Thank you.

So the thing is there's a reason why we have impact fees, right? And program that would fund parks, somehow we're going to have to come up with the money somewhere. So whether or we just don't put into our parks program. So you're denying that development the opportunity to I don't know, it's not like you're going to buy parkland right next to the development site. But just keep in mind that whenever you waive fees, we've got to come up with the money somewhere which I'm not adverse to, but I'm just saying to incentivize based on waiving of fees, we're going to have to come up with the money somewhere else even if it's out of the general fund.

And so I'm supportive also of staggering the abatement based on the explanation you just described to us. But overall, just keep in mind that someone's going to

have to pay for it.

Yes. Mean there's

definitely a trade off and certainly as we continue to develop this policy, which it sounds like the commission is supportive of us looking at it and try and bringing something back. We can look at things like annual caps on how much we're willing to dole out in those of incentives to try to mitigate some of that impact. But we'll, do a lot of this research, do a full vet on the policy and bring that back to commission at a later date.

Okay. Any other questions or comments? Sounds good.

Comments. If we're coming to an end, I just I would like to thank, AHAC for, allowing me to sit with you all. You all are doing an amazing job. And to the commission, I want you to know that you have appointed some amazing, individuals with great insight. So, let's let's listen to what they're saying, and I'm I I believe we're going ahead with this. I think that's the consensus. Yep. But I I just wanted to say that I am honored to sit at the table with each of you. You bring great conversation and you're making a great impact. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions or comments? There being none, Susan, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you everyone who sits on the board. Amanda, thank you and, look forward to, our next meeting. And if I if I might,

may I also wanted to point out that this is Susan's last meeting, and I wanted to thank her very much for her service, not just serving in the board as an appointee of District 2, but also for your chair work and, obviously to the entire board. But I just wanted to say thank you very much for your service.

Thank you. Great job, Susan.

Okay. City manager, do have any further comments or thoughts? Nothing further, mayor. Okay. This meeting is now concluded.