Housing for All of Lake County, an affordable housing advocacy group in Lake County, held its 3rd annual housing forum on Sept 30. The city of Groveland hosted the event which was attended by city, county, government officials and key business leaders in Lake County. The growing affordable housing shortage in Lake County was address and solutions were discussed.
Kyle Bultach, Senior VP Florida Chamber Foundation, presented the CASE for PROSPERITY making housing a priority for economic growth. He pointed out that 42% of workers cannot afford to live in Lake and live outside of the county. Employers in Lake County are struggling to find and retain workers due to the high cost of housing.
Tim Maslow, City of Groveland Economic Director, presented numerous options for developers and builders to use their pre-approved designs for affordable housing units as they welcome having more affordable housing.
Steve Smith, President of Housing for All of Lake and a developer, shared that new home prices increased 27% over the last 12 months, and current average medium-priced homes are $317,000. He also reported that Lake currently lacks over 9,000 affordable housing units and this number will double with expected Lake’s projected population increase over the next 10 years.
Jaimie Ross, CEO/President of Florida Housing Coalition, cited that cities are using community land trusts to reduce development costs. Governments are also waiving impact fees, reducing taxes, and increasing density for developments that include affordable housing in their proposed development
Pastor Brian Broadway of Find, Feed, and Restore closed the forum challenging Lake County governments and businesses to be part of the solution:
- County to provide $10 million to nonprofit developers to create affordable housing.
- Cities to provide 10% of their American Rescue Plan funds for affordable housing development
- Businesses to provide land and grants to non-profit developers who would create housing for these company employees.
