Dropped: Sarasota removes potential for taller buildings from affordable housing proposal

After more than three hours of public comments involving about 50 speakers, the Sarasota City Commission on Monday severed building height limitations from a proposal aimed at increasing affordable housing inside city limits.

The remaining parts of the proposal — creation of a future land use designation along the city's major traffic corridors, allowance for higher density for more affordable housing units, staff approval for projects that contain affordable housing and a new zoning district in the Park East downtown neighborhood — passed on a 4-1 vote after the potential for taller buildings had been removed from the discussion.

Previous coverage: Going up? Sarasota commissioners to debate whether to make it easier to build taller

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Residents opposed to the proposal spoke passionately about choosing to live in Sarasota specifically because it didn't look or feel like cities with taller buildings and greater densities.

Many residents who opposed the proposal acknowledged the challenges with increasing rents and real estate prices, but didn't believe the changes would adequately address the underlying problems. Some opponents called for slowing down the process and holding more community discussions.

Jim Lampl, president of the Rosemary District Association, suggested the local governments buy more land to build affordable housing instead of providing incentives to developers to build it, which has not worked so far.

Incentives available to developers in the Rosemary District have not yielded a single affordable housing unit, though a project along 10th Street and Cocoanut Avenue that does contain affordable housing units was approved last fall.

City planners have described the more affordable housing as units that would be rented by people making less than 120% of the average median income. In Sarasota, that figure for a family of four is more than $100,000 a year, according to data presented by city officials.

Lampl also coined a phrase that became popular with both proponents and opponents of the proposed plans, with many repeating his wording in comments throughout the meeting.

He said that Sarasota was being "loved to death" as demand for housing and development in Sarasota far outpaced what the area can sustain.

"We have record-breaking permits for the city. Developers aren't having a hard time with the city," he said. "We have no dearth of development here. We are not desperate like we were during the recession.

"Our problem is we are getting loved to death," he said.

Longtime Sarasota attorney Bill Merrill of Icard Merrill said he was strongly in support of the proposed changes because of the need for revitalization of "tired" areas along the city's traffic corridors like old shopping centers and a desperate need for affordable housing options.

He agreed with Lampl from earlier in the meeting about the area "being loved to death," but he viewed the potential solution differently.

"But when you've been loved to death that means you have a limited supply and a huge demand, which means greatly increased prices which means outlandish rentals."

Several local developers also spoke about current density caps and height restrictions that do not incentivize development of affordable housing.

The current maximum in downtown is 50 units per acre for density, which developers said makes larger, luxury condos much more financially feasible than smaller rental units.

The vote at Monday's meeting only transmits the proposals to state officials as changes to a municipality's growth plan requires state approval. City staff expects state approval of the changes during the summer, with the revisions returning for city consideration in late summer or early fall.

Building taller buildings sparked intense opposition from some Sarasota residents

The possibility that the city would make it easier for developers to build taller buildings sparked intense opposition from some city residents. The staff had suggested removing building height consideration from the city's long-range growth planning process, a move that could have lifted a requirement for a super majority — a majority plus one of the City Commission — to increase downtown buildings' height limits.

City Manager Marlon Brown informed city commissioners at the beginning of Monday's meeting that because of those concerns, the planning department had proposed to keep building heights in the growth plan, but allow for properties zoned Downtown Core to have up to five stories of additional height and properties zoned Downtown Edge to have up to two additional floors of building height.

Properties along Sarasota's bayfront would have remained at 18 stories, with no proposals for affordable housing "bonus" floors in those properties, maintaining the current height limit for downtown property of 18 stories.

However, that proposal failed after two motions from the City Commission to move it forward did not gain four of five affirmative votes.

City Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch, the lone no vote in the final vote after removal of height limitations from proposed changes, said she did not agree with the changes because of the limited amount of community engagement given the huge scope of the changes.

She also had issues with height and administrative review and didn't believe the commission had enough discussion on parts of the proposal.

"I can't support this," she said. "It's too fast, too much, too quick. There's no community discussion ... it just hasn't happened."

City Commissioner Hagen Brody called the building height issue a "poison pill" that needed more buy-in from the community before it was passed by the commission.

City Commissioner Liz Alpert said it was only a poison pill if Brody let it become that and urged "bold" action by including the height issue in the current proposal, while continuing the conversation on height issues with the community before state officials send the proposal back to the City commission for final approval.

"You have the power to vote yes," she said. "It's only a poison pill if you deny it."

After the motion passed 4-1 without changing building height limits, Brody then made a motion for city staff to host a community workshop on the topic of building heights at a future date, which passed 5-0.

"The density conversation just needs to happen in an earnest way in this community," he said. "I think we need to stop thinking of density as a bad thing — as long as it's done intelligently and in line with professional thought on city planning."

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota severs building heights from affordable housing proposal