Summit eyes housing costs

By Eve Samples
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

PORT ST. LUCIE — The real estate mantra "drive till you qualify" can mean an awfully long road trip these days.

With a median housing price hovering around $250,000, St. Lucie County - once a haven for affordable homes - is off that route for many service-industry and public-sector employees.

Yet the demand for such housing will only increase in the coming decades, experts predict, potentially trapping the region in an economic vise.

By 2025, the four-county area stretching from Palm Beach County to Indian River County will need about 120,000 new "workforce" housing units: homes that are affordable for people who make 60 percent to 120 percent of the median income.

That's about one-third of all homes the region is expected to build during the 19-year period, said Greg Vaday, economic development coordinator for the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council.

"That's a significant number," he said.

Vaday outlined the figures, compiled by the University of Florida's Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, on Friday during the Realtors Association of St. Lucie Inc.'s first housing summit.

The roughly 40 real estate agents and local leaders in attendance spent the day studying the problem and compiling seven recommendations that they will bring back to local governments.
At the top of their list: Create more diverse rental properties.

"I would estimate that 90 percent of the teachers that we hire and recruit want to rent," said Steve Valencia, personnel director for the St. Lucie County School District.

High rental costs are causing the district to lose teachers, he said, citing a popular, second-year band teacher who recently moved away.

"Students loved him. Teachers loved him. The community loved him," he said. "He was doing a good job, but he just couldn't afford to live in St. Lucie County."

The county's sheriff's office and fire district are facing similar recruitment roadblocks, even as they need more hires than ever to keep pace with record growth, leaders reported.
"We can't compete with the salaries that are being offered to the south of us at this point, particularly Miami-Dade County and Broward County," said Rick Carreno, human resources director for the St. Lucie County Fire District.

Meanwhile, the average rent for a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in Martin and St. Lucie counties rose 9.5 percent during the past year to $1,058, according to the Novato, Calif., firm RealFacts.

Buying is even further out of reach for many workers.
Starting salaries for teachers, firefighters and sheriff's deputies in St. Lucie County are in the low $30,000s, below the $53,000 a household must earn to afford a $250,000 home.
Even if workers can get into a home, the rising costs of insurance and property taxes may prevent them from staying there.

"Getting approved for the mortgage is not really the issue," said Sheila Grandison, head of recruitment for the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office. "It is more the costs associated."
To alleviate that problem, the group recommended creating additional property tax exemptions for community service workers, similar to the senior homestead exemptions some counties have passed for the elderly.

That's something St. Lucie Property Appraiser Jeff Furst said he could support.
The group also wants local governments to create a "community land trust," which would purchase land and homes for affordable housing using money from a new trust fund.

That's among the ideas another housing group, the Attainable/Affordable Housing Task Force of St. Lucie County, plans to present to the county commission next week.

Palm Beach County has created a community land trust and is considering a bond issue to buy land.

But across the region, the fragmented movement to create more affordable housing during the past several years has created few bottom-line results.

Builders tend to oppose subsidizing affordable housing, while governments have limited resources with which to work.

"This is not an issue of fairness," Vaday said. "This is really an issue of sustainability."