GOVERNMENT

Collier revives affordable housing trust fund; questions persist about funding

Naples

Collier County, hoping to attract more affordable housing and continuing a struggle to find effective measures that has dragged on for years, is reviving a local housing trust fund, but questions remain about reliable funding.

Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously voted to move forward with a trust fund that could be tapped for a variety of uses, including down payment assistance, impact fee relief, land acquisition, construction and development loans and rental assistance, among other things.

Nonprofit and for-profit organizations would be able to apply for funding from the trust fund — which would be provided as deferred payment loans at 0% interest — to build affordable homes. The maximum award per project would be $3 million.

An appointed committee would review and score requests for funding using a point system. For instance, because the county’s greatest current need is for affordable rental housing for “extremely low to low income” households, or those earning less than 80% of median area income, more points are awarded to development that would address that need.

More points are also awarded to projects that commit to staying affordable longer or place housing into a community land trust. Additionally, points can be earned for having housing close to bus stops or for proposing projects as infill developments, among other things.

County staff say the trust fund criteria will be evaluated and modified as needed.

All developments funded with the help of the trust fund are required to set aside at least 10% for seniors, special needs individuals or veterans.

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Money comes into the trust fund if the county sells a piece of surplus property, if somebody who currently owns a deed-restricted affordable housing property sells it early and has to pay the penalty for doing so or if anyone donates money to the county for affordable housing uses, said Cormac Giblin, the county's housing and grant development manager.

“Right now it’s pretty limited sources,” he said.

As of Sept. 23, there was $164,800 available in the fund to allocate to housing activities. Up to 10% of the funds may be used to cover administrative expenses.

The money has accumulated over the past year, but the bulk of it came from one sale of one surplus property, Giblin said.

“And I don’t see many more of those coming,” he said.

A source of consistent funding for the trust fund is still unclear.

Commissioners in April 2018 decided not to use tax money or other developer fees to pay for the trust fund, but instead directed staff to study whether there is any other feasible way to restart the fund.

The county had created a trust fund in the mid-2000s, charging developers a fee if they didn't include a certain number of below-market-price homes or apartments. Much of the money that was owed to the fund never was collected. The money that was collected never was used and eventually was offered back to developers.

The commission in April 2018 tasked the county’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee to work with county staff to develop criteria for evaluating the appropriate mix of “very low, low, moderate and gap income housing” to qualify for the housing trust fund.

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A subcommittee was formed in June 2019 and met for three months to develop the fund’s guidelines and “competitive evaluation criteria.”

While the criteria was developed, “the lack of a dedicated recurring revenue source” for the trust fund “was identified as a major concern” to the advisory committee, county staff wrote in a summary to commissioners.

“Members of the committee expressed a compelling need to identify and increase the funds available in order to provide viable and effective housing initiatives,” staff added.

As part of the approval of the trust fund, the advisory committee received the green light to research a variety of potential funding sources for the trust fund and bring recommendations back to commissioners.

Commissioners on Tuesday also voted 3-2 to move forward with establishing a nonprofit community land trust, which would buy properties for affordable housing and work with other organizations to build the homes. Commissioners Bill McDaniel and Donna Fiala voted against creating the land trust.

Both the Urban Land Institute, which was hired in 2017 to assess the situation in Collier and determined that the county was fast approaching a housing crisis, and the Florida Housing Coalition have recommended that the county create a community land trust to mitigate the high cost of housing construction in Collier.

“It separates the price of the land from the price of the housing in order to maintain affordability for the long term,” Giblin told commissioners.

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The approval from commissioners means the Naples-based nonprofit H.E.L.P. — which stands for housing, education, lending programs and is a HUD-approved counseling agency — will establish the community land trust and run it, eventually creating a separate private nonprofit that will handle the land trust.

Commissioners previously approved funding of $100,000 over two years to establish a community land trust.

The land trust model also guarantees its long-term affordability through 99-year land leases, Giblin said.

Although a sales tax hike approved by voters last year will collect $20 million over seven years and earmark it for a workforce housing land trust, that will be separate from the community land trust.

Under the rules for the sales tax the county will have to own the land for the workforce housing land trust, Giblin said. However, there could be a scenario where the county buys land and then leases it to the community land trust to manage and the nonprofit subleases it to a developer who would build on it.

“They could work hand in hand down the road,” Giblin said. “You could see a scenario where the land trust may identify a piece that they feel is a good parcel to be acquired by the county and they could approach us about buying it.”

But to Fiala and McDaniel the community land trust provides too little oversight to make sure the properties won’t fall into disrepair.

Because the land leases are for 99 years, homes will likely deteriorate, Fiala said after the meeting. She questioned how the county could keep track of the housing.

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“And our staff is not going to be involved in that, you know, they’re just leaving it up to the other company,” she said. “Well, that’s 99 years, that’s different companies buying things out. And I’m just afraid it’ll be looking like a slum and the people who live in that area can’t protect themselves because there’s a 99-year lease.”

Giblin, however, said the benefit of the community land trust model is that the organization actively manages the properties, maintaining property standards, making necessary repairs and keeping the area up to snuff.

“So it’s a partnership between the people in the housing and the landowner, who would be the community land trust, to maintain those standards for the long term,” he told commissioners. “That’s one of the advantages of the extended term is that we would have assurances that that housing is kept up to standard for the long term.”

McDaniel, too, worried about how the properties would be maintained. He said he didn’t see a “clear mechanism” to make sure the maintenance of the properties would be sufficient over time, and he is opposed to using taxpayer dollars to fund the community land trust.

“I believe there are mechanisms to support housing affordability that don’t require the expenditure of taxpayer money,” he said after the meeting.

Connect with the reporter at patrick.riley@naplesnews.com or on Twitter @PatJRiley.