Editorial: Match South Florida Housing Market to South Florida Housing Demand

The new problem for Florida, according to a Palm Beach Post editorial, is not just the ability to buy a home, but the cost of staying in a home. That means more than just the Florida mortgage payment - it means property taxes and insurance.

But you can’t solve one without the other, and counties and cities still haven’t rectified the old problem - the cost of getting into a home.

The latest attempt at dealing with the lack of affordable housing comes from the Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County, a creation of the county’s Economic Council and other business groups. This new group bills itself as “an action-oriented coalition.”

In fact, the Post asserts, the group is starting off more as agitator.

It has a website and plans newsletters. It will convene workshops to focus on two overlooked areas: employer-assisted housing and rentals. It plans to issue a report card for every city and Palm Beach County. It seeks to raise public awareness. It is more watchdog than change agent.

The council has no position on inclusionary zoning, Palm Beach County’s requirement that new developments include workforce housing. It has little to say about not-for-profit housing trusts that aim to cut land costs and pass on the savings to home buyers.

It has been unable to engage home builders.

In a meeting with the Post Monday, council leaders were unable to pull from many studies the target price of affordable housing. Later, the group settled on $134,000-205,000. The median price of an existing home in Palm Beach County is nearly $385,000.

For any medium-to-large county in Florida, overcoming the market’s inability to produce a sufficient number of moderately priced homes is not easy. The cost of land, material and labor is up. The market for high-end homes remains up. The cost of converting unbuilt land into subdivisions remains high.

This issue pits builders who want to maximize profit and business owners who either can’t recruit employees or are losing them to lower-cost states. The Palm Beach County housing council’s approach, modeled after one in Broward County, could help statewide.

The council recognizes that cities, where redevelopment opportunities are great but land is scarce, have to be part of the solution if people ever want to see affordable Florida home mortgage loan payments. It singles out for praise Delray Beach, which has formed a land trust.

The council’s report card can be useful in pressuring cities.

Separate studies by Palm Beach County and the housing council conclude that the county needs nearly 100,000 workforce units over the next two decades. Despite large demand, the market isn’t ready to meet it. Developers have stopped building homes most people can afford.

The council fills a void in offering its independent ideas and much-needed pressure. Failure to act could leave some counties in Florida with lots of high-end homes but no workers, and leave the South Florida housing market in disarray. Now is the time to act.