- October 7, 2024
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When it comes to a 2023 law aimed at increasing affordable housing units in the state of Florida, local officials state that clarifications are still needed.
Last July, Senate Bill 102, known as the Live Local Act, went into effect. The law grants developers the right to build multifamily or mixed use residential buildings at the highest allowed density — without needing authorization from local governments — on land zoned commercial, industrial or mixed-use. Developers only needed to ensure at least 40% of the units fell under the affordable housing umbrella. Then, they would be eligible for a 75% or 100% property tax exemption, to be renewed annually, for 30 years.
Following the recent passing of SB 328, which granted local governments the right to restrict the height of developments built under the Live Local Act, the Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors and Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted a panel at Daytona State College on Thursday, June 6, to provide an update on what the law's implementation may look like in Volusia County.
"If there's anything that denigrates home rule, this is one of them," said Shari Simmans, director of economic development, communications and government affairs in the city of DeBary.
No building permits have been pulled in any of Volusia's 16 cities to construct an apartment complex under the Live Local Act.
But three complexes have applied this year for a 75% tax exemption, Simmans said. Under the law, owners of apartment complexes built in the last five years can qualify for a 75% property tax exemption if 40% of their tenants have an annual household income that "is greater than 80% but not more than 120% of the median annual adjusted gross income for households within the metropolitan statistical area," according to the Live Local Act. To qualify for a 100% tax exemption, the units need to be rented to people whose median income doesn't exceed the 80% median annual adjusted gross income.
The current median income for the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach metropolitan area is $82,800, according to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation. Based on this, an apartment complex could rent a one-bedroom unit for $1,864 a month and still be eligible for a 75% tax exemption.
In DeBary, Simmans said one of the apartment complexes that applied for a 75% tax exemption used to rent one-bedroom units for $1,400. They raised the rent to $1,800, she said.
"And they still get the tax exemption, even by raising the rent," Simmans said.
It's too early to tell whether the Live Local Act is accomplishing what it was meant to do, said Murphy Kennedy Giering, a public policy representative with Florida Realtors.
"Live Local was passed as an emergency measure to address Florida's affordable housing crisis," Giering said. "... We also know that it takes on average three years for an affordable housing development to go through the zoning, the approvals, construction, to finally get those units online."
As part of the law, the state also created a Local Tax Credit Program, which allows a private business to contribute to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation to benefit the State Apartment Incentive Loan Program, known as SAIL. This program provides low-interest loans for the development of affordable rental units. For every dollar given to SAIL, Giering said, the business owner can receive a dollar credit against corporate income tax liability or their insurance premium tax liability.
A total of $150 million in SAIL funding for the next 10 years was also made available through the Live Local Act.
Giering added that the Live Local Act also helps the Florida Hometown Heroes Housing Program, which provides funds to help with down payments and closing costs for first-time, income-qualified homebuyers. SB 328 granted the program an additional $100 million dollars.
Giering said over 15,000 Florida families have benefited from the Hometown Heroes program.
"These are phenomenal accomplishments," Giering said. "And really, that we're talking about affordable housing solutions, I think for the first time in many years in a realistic way, means that this is an accomplishment of the Live Local Act."
In June 2023, the Ormond Beach Commission approved a 270-unit apartment development at 36 N. Tymber Creek. If they hadn't, the developer of the project, known as the Tymber Creek Apartments, expressed he may have pursued a development under the Live Local Act instead. He could have built upward of 525 units, under the law.
The city of DeBary is now under a temporary building moratorium as it updates its Land Development Code, a process three years in the making, Simmans said. The moratorium was approved last October and lasts for nine months.
The city of Daytona Beach has adopted an ordinance that exempts golf courses from being developed under the Live Local Act.
Daytona Beach Deputy City Manager Jim Morris said the ordinance passed because many golf courses don't have covenants or restrictions that require them to always be used as a golf course.
He referenced the ongoing Tomoka Oaks golf course development proposal, for which the city of Ormond Beach denied a zoning change in April. The developers' attorney said this could leave the city open to a $40 million lawsuit.
The statutes haven't been clear on whether Live Local could extend to golf course properties.
"So we chose to make it clear," Morris said.
Cobb Cole Attorney Jessica Gow said there is an ongoing lawsuit in Plant City regarding whether a golf course qualifies as a commercial use. The lawsuit, she explained, was filed after the city denied a preliminary plat for an affordable housing development on a golf course.
"The Live Local Act, as it stands today, has been greatly untested," Gow said.
Florida House Rep. Chase Tramont, who dropped by the event, said he doesn't agree with what he described as "demonization of developers."
"This idea that people are coming in to tear down everything and destroy our economy and destroy our way of life, and then profit from there," Tramont said. "I just don't hold that view."
People today likely live in homes that another person didn't want to see built, he said.
"I've always found it fascinating that the same people who complain about the lack of affordable housing — or obtainable houses is the word I like to use — are the same ones that complain about overdevelopment," Tramont said. "You can't have it both ways. We can't say that we need the cost of living to go down, we need the price of homes to go down, yet meanwhile, stop all the ability to create the greater supply to meet the demand that we're having."
The Live Local Act is not perfect, he said. Tramont added that he believes it will need to be continually adjusted for as long as it exists.
"No bill is perfect on the implementation of the document," he said. "But that's the point of having session after session after session. You have to come back in to address those deficiencies and try to resolve those issues."
One change that the Volusia Legislative Delegation, Simmans said, is still seeking is the elimination of the 75% tax exemption for property owners who rent units at prices based on the 80-120% of the median annual adjusted gross income.
"I think the numbers I've described show that it's not meeting the needs of the true missing middle," Simmans said. "So if it's 80% and under, I think you're going to find that will be much more palatable for some local governments."
