LPA can't decide on affordable housing fee for builders

What would it take to make houses in Bonita Springs affordable — $50,000; $100,000; $200,000?

While the answer to the question is complicated, a city advisory board Thursday tried to break the equation down to a dollar amount.

It couldn’t.

The issue arose because the City Council on May 17 suspended its bonus-density housing program, which allowed developers to pay a set amount per unit to build more homes than would normally be allowed.

The city’s reasoning for ending the program was that it wasn’t helping with affordable housing in the area, and the $11,000 per unit the developers paid was far too low.

The city asked the Local Planning Agency to come up with a more reasonable amount for the fee. The LPA attempted to do so last week and tried again on Thursday.

“What is the number that makes a non-affordable housing unit affordable?” LPA Chairman Larry Warner said. “That is a formula that would work.”

The median income for a family of four in Bonita Springs is around $50,000, while the median housing price in Lee County is just less than $300,000, according to a presentation Thursday from Fishkind & Associates.

Warner estimated people in need of affordable housing could afford a $100,000-$125,000 home. If it costs $150,000 to $175,000 to build a unit in the city, the difference should be what developers pay under the bonus density program, he said.

Warner concluded that fee should be $50,000.

“It is probably more in the $100,000 range,” LPA member Jose Lopez said.

The LPA ultimately decided not to make any recommendation about the fee for the program.

Either way, the bonus-density program is not the solution to the affordable housing problem in the city, Warner said, because it only raises money through a program where the fee is passed on to the customer.

Bonita Springs should explore other sources of revenue for affordable housing, he said. In the past, Warner has recommended a tax or fee on businesses that have workers requiring affordable housing.

“There are so many ways to skin this cat; we are just not looking at them,” Warner said.

The city does own property on East Terry Street it is considering converting into an affordable housing unit. The City Council should have a discussion about that parcel — often called the Mayhood property — in the next six weeks, Assistant City Manager Barbara Barnes Buchanan said.