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Mobile home aid plan on hold

A relocation assistance proposal for Clearwater-Largo Road goes back to the drawing board, leaving developers and investors impatient.

By SHANNON TAN
Published July 2, 2005

LARGO - The city is redesigning its Clearwater-Largo Road mobile home relocation assistance program to address the county's concerns, and the wait is making developers weary.

The City Commission approved the corridor's redevelopment plan in March. But the county said the relocation assistance program was pre-empted by state statute. The county proposed an alternative last month, but later realized that its proposal was not legal either.

"We are having to start over," said assistant community development director Carol Stricklin.

The Largo plan will displace an unprecedented number of people from a community redevelopment area. The city wanted to give developers who replaced the blighted mobile home parks incentives if they offered residents nearly double the relocation compensation required by state statute.

The county liked the idea of helping displaced residents, but said the program was pre-empted by state statute. The county staff suggested using tax increment funds to assist those residents instead.

Tax increment financing is tax revenue in excess of property value in a redevelopment area that is used to promote private sector activity in that area. But because the funds build up as property values increase, the city would have to take money out of its general fund as a loan in the meantime, Stricklin said.

Instead, the city staff is considering using existing programs like community development block grants to help renters who have to move. Those funds would help pay for rental and utility deposits on new housing.

The city is also looking at additional incentives for developers to provide affordable housing. The plan currently calls for developers who set aside 30 percent of their projects as affordable housing to raise the density per acre by three units.

Under a new concept called inclusionary zoning or "balanced housing," developers would be required to include lower-priced homes in their projects, or help pay for such homes elsewhere in the city. Sarasota is considering adopting such a law, which mandates that developers either build homes for moderate-income families or contribute to an affordable housing trust fund.

The city staff also is scrambling to make other changes recommended by the county, such as keeping the future land use of an old lumber yard industrial. Third Street NW residents worried that townhomes would be built at the site.

The City Commission will vote on any changes July 19. The amended plan will then go to the county for approval. County commissioners need to make a finding that the plan will place mobile home residents in safe and sanitary housing "within their means and without undue hardship."

Stricklin says investors are getting weary of waiting for the plan to be approved. Developers with properties under contract have had to extend those contracts several times, she said. "We're concerned those investments may go elsewhere," she said.

But Brian Smith, county planning director, remained optimistic.

"There is a benefit in that the plan might become better," he said.

--Shannon Tan can be reached at shtan@sptimes.com or 445-4174.

[Last modified July 2, 2005, 01:21:22]