Bonita council begins long road to revising affordable housing fees

The affordable housing crisis? Sure, it’s complicated.

The Bonita Springs City Council arrived at this conclusion Wednesday night after two hours of discussion, and all it ended up with was another meeting to talk about the same topic.

“We’re talking this thing to death. I’m tired of talking about it without any affirmative action,” Councilman Richard Ferreira said.

The council was attempting to fix its bonus density program where housing developers have the option to pay a per-unit fee into the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund in exchange for building at a higher density.

“We need to look at what the consequences of those actions are,” Councilman Ben Nelson said. “We need to put some kind of time into this thing.”

On May 17, the council suspended its bonus density program because it felt the $11,000 per unit fee was far too low. It wasn’t creating any affordable housing, city staff said at the time.

For two weeks, the Bonita Springs Local Planning Agency tried to come up with a recommendation to the council for what the fee should be but ended up with nothing.

A representative from Fishkind & Associates, a consulting firm, made that recommendation to council Wednesday, saying the per-unit fee should be $131,000.

The firm reached that number by taking percentages of the Bonita Springs median income and subtracting them from the average existing home price in Lee County, which is $235,172.

Although the $131,000 per-unit optional fee seemed high to some of the council members, it is near the number the LPA was considering for the past two weeks and about the amount City Manager Gary Price envisioned when he talked about increasing the bonus density housing program fee.

After mulling over the number for two hours and discussing it with some developers, the council decided not to make a decision Wednesday and scheduled a workshop to follow its 9 a.m. July 5 meeting.

Former Mayor Paul Pass was watching the council meeting on Channel 12 from home and drove to City Hall to comment on the issue. It was the first time he had done so since he left office in 2004.

“I want you to think very, very long and hard about what the number should be,” Pass said.

Nelson was apprehensive about having the higher number because he thought it might increase the problem. The $131,000 per unit fee would be passed onto the home buyers, thus making housing less affordable.

Mayor Jay Arend was reluctant to approve the number because he didn’t know of any other city in Florida that had a fee so high.

“It looks so simple, you wonder why everybody isn’t doing it,” Arend said.

When the council suspended the bonus density program May 17, it said the city would temporarily not accept housing requests asking for extra density.

This left three requests in limbo as those developers had already applied for bonus density but hadn’t been approved.

“I’m absolutely aghast at what I just heard,” said Matt Uhle, attorney for one of the three applicants. “The bonus density program doesn’t work for (affordable) housing.”

The council ruled those three in limbo could proceed toward approval, although they might have to pay the increased per-unit fee.

Ferreira objected to the move because he felt the council should have proceeded with the $131,000 figure.

“This has been talked to death. It has been studied to death. This is a good figure,” he said.