Presser Notes: How much is affordable housing worth?

by Jeremy Morrison

While much of his weekly press conference Monday morning was devoted to the issue of affordable housing within the boundaries of the Community Redevelopment Agency, Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson also wanted to discuss funding for a permanent restroom facility at Veterans Memorial Park.

Pensacola’s request for $355,000 to construct the park’s restrooms was among the budgetary asks recently vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The mayor said the city will now look at other avenues of realizing the facilities.

“Certainly talking with council about looking with what we can do with getting permanent restrooms there and funding in this year’s budget to make sure that we can make permanent restrooms a reality there is a part of it,” Robinson said.

Noting that Monday’s anniversary of D-Day — marking the Allied invasion of Normandy, France during World War II — falls on a date on which the Pensacola City Council has a budget workshop scheduled, Mayor Robinson urged council members to prioritize funding of the Veterans park facility.

“Hopefully we can find a way to honor those veterans and get those public restrooms in there too,” he said. “No better day than to do it today, on the anniversary of D-day.”

The Habitat Quandary

Pensacola officials are focused on creating more affordable housing within the city. This is the same mission as the non-profit organization Habitat for Humanity, though it seems that group’s methods have resulted in a possible missed opportunity within city limits.

In 2013, Habitat picked up property near the intersection of Jackson and D streets. The organization has since sold the property, stating that the proceeds from the sale would allow for the creation of additional affordable housing — outside of the city limits, where the money would go farther.

However, city officials hunting for potential affordable housing sites wanted Habitat property: “We did look at the property on Jackson. By the time we inquired about it, it was already in private hands.”

“We were like, “Who owns that?’” recounted Mayor Robinson. “By the time we figured it out, the sale had already gone from Habitat to Merrill Land Company; they had already made that sale at that time. We certainly weren’t aware of it.”

“I would have rather had the opportunity for us to have built affordable housing there,” the mayor continued, chalking the item up to a misalignment of interest between the city and Habitat. “By the time we got together, it was already too late; it had already sold.”

Over the Overlay?

One reason that Habitat may have sought to unload its Jackson Street property, Mayor Robinson allowed, was the potential development constraints imposed by the CRA overlay district, in which the property falls.

“We’ve tried to work with Habitat,” Mayor Robinson said, explaining that the city attempted to address some concerns the organization had regarding the overlay district, which requires developers to adhere to certain aesthetic specifics in designs.

The main tweak that city officials made to its CRA overlay was to add an amendment process through which developers could request to deviate from the requirements.

“That was the biggest problem that we had,” Robinson said. “Used to be that there was no recourse for you if you did not fit the overly, and we saw a number of things, both residential and commercial development, that was stopped by that.”

He pointed to the city’s development requirements within its historic district and allowed that such conditions tend to price properties out of the range associated with affordability. He said, “It’s a very noble purpose in trying to preserve our history, but in doing so, there’s nothing that is affordable necessarily, in that area.”

With this in mind, Mayor Robinson suggested the city should consider its options when it comes to the CRA overly, which the council had instituted to address large-scale housing developments that it believed were inconsistent with the surrounding area.

“The council can decide whether they want to get rid of the overlay or what they want to do,” the mayor said.

“You know, I mean, an interesting point as we sit here and discuss this, does the council want to take the overlay for a period and maybe take a breather and say, ‘you know what, in the interest of affordability maybe we’re gonna take a time period, and we’re not gonna do this and figure out, you know — take it down for a while.’ I mean, these are all options.”

Should We Develop City Parks?

Mayor Robinson said Pensacola’s public parks are also being discussed as a possible stock for affordable housing.

“At this point, we have been asked to look at the possibility of utilizing some land for affordable housing?’” Mayor Robinson said. “We’ve been talking to council members that have said, ‘hey, there are opportunities where affordable housing becomes the most critical part of what is in my district.”

The mayor referred to the concept of developing public parks as “non-traditional” and said that no specific parks were currently being considered. Robinson also stressed that the city would be exploring other options for affordable housing — such as the potential offered via the soon-to-be-available property being vacated by Baptist Hospital — before keying in on any parks.

“If it came to the point where we weren’t successful in other places, we would look at all opportunities,” he said, describing the potential of developing parks as “another tool we have in the toolbox.” “You’ve gotta be willing to look at everything.”

Acknowledging that concepts such as unloading city parks or scrapping the CRA overlay could strike some as extreme measures, Mayor Robinson contended that the affordable housing challenges currently faced within the city — which he said was the “big driving factor” in city considerations — could demand that such status quo be reassessed: “I think now affordability has totally flipped the argument …”

“Government is dynamic; you can’t look at government as static,” he said. “And a lot of time people wanna view government rules as static, like, ‘I know what the rules are, and I’ve built my whole life around these rules, and I don’t wanna change the rules.’ Well, life changes, and you’ve gotta be willing to change your rules as life changes around you.”

Robinson continued, “So, I think dynamic cities are ones that can move much better to incorporate and deal with what the future hands them.”