A Look Inside a Palm Beach County Workforce Housing Development
Call Green Cay Village controversial. Call it energy-efficient, as Florida Power & Light does. Or call it affordable housing, as Palm Beach County does.
Loren Mulligan - a 43-year-old single mother of twins and teacher at Loggers Run Middle School in Boca Raton - calls Green Cay Village, a workforce housing development west of Boynton Beach, something simpler: home.
“A big burden has been taken off my chest,” said Mulligan, who moved in nine days ago. “I was renting, and I couldn’t find anything to buy in my price range until this.
“Now I have a home, and I don’t have to worry anymore.”
Mulligan put down a deposit the first week Green Cay Village opened its sales office and was among the first new homeowners to move into the 420-unit development at the corner of Jog and Flavor Pict roads.
The $85 million collection of Florida condos, townhouses and apartments is priced to be affordable for teachers, nurses and police officers - the county’s “essential workers.”
Instead of marketing Green Cay Village in the typical way, the developers went straight to where they knew the buyers were: police stations, schools, hospitals, county government offices and the like.
They did this even before Palm Beach County mandated that developers set aside a percentage of their new homes for workforce housing.
“When we first started, the term ‘workforce housing’ wasn’t even invented,” said Green Cay Village developer Jerry Goray of Goray Communities in Boca Raton. “We said we were going to build for Middle America - people who have been priced out of the market.”
Palm Beach County was one of those markets.
In just five years of boom-time housing appreciation, existing-home prices soared by triple digits in Palm Beach County, but incomes rose by a measly single digit, making Florida home loan acquisitions nearly impossible for many residents.
In fact, a startling survey last year by the Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County concluded that as many as 90 percent of households could not afford to buy the median-priced single-family home, which cost $392,900 in the first quarter of 2006.
Home prices have remained relatively stable this year as the market cooled down, dropping in February to a median price of $374,300 for an existing single-family home and to $209,600 for an existing condo, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.
The prices at Green Cay Village range from a more affordable $198,900 to $299,900, however, making all the difference in the world to prospective applicants for Florida mortgage loans.
That’s reflective of the fact that Palm Beach County’s gap between home prices and what workers can afford to pay - a divide of more than $200,000 last year - pushed the need for affordable housing to crisis level.
Goray is most proud of putting the “green” into Green Cay Village.
The community uses recycled water for lawn sprinkling, has high-efficiency Trane air-conditioning units, upgraded “healthy home” carpets, Energy Mizer hot-water heaters and Energy Star-rated appliances.
Meanwhile, there’s a waiting list of more than 200 for the rental apartments, said Randy Rieger of Housing Trust Group in Coconut Grove, the other Green Cay Village developer.
Rents for one-, two- and three-bedroom units range from about $650-800. That compares with a market rate of about $1,600 in Palm Beach County last year.
Mulligan said her Florida mortgage and monthly maintenance fee combined are less than what she paid in rent. Teachers such as Mulligan aren’t the only buyers lured to Green Cay Village, though.
“We’ve attracted a number of active seniors,” Goray said, and he couldn’t be happier about that.
Seventy-five percent of the buyers are “essential workers,” Goray said. Of those, more than half are first-time home buyers.
“That’s very significant,” Goray said. “Mission accomplished.”
SOURCE: Palm Beach Post
