August 16, 2005. Herald-Tribune.
SARASOTA – A coalition of churches wants taxes that have helped pay for high-profile commercial and office developments downtown to also be used for affordable housing.
Sarasota United for Responsibility and Equity, commonly known as SURE, recently got more than 1,000 signatures from residents affiliated with its 21 churches and faith-based organizations on a petition.
The petitioners want Sarasota to use at least half of the property taxes collected for its Community Redevelopment Agency to subsidize housing for low- to moderate-income workers who are getting priced out of the city’s soaring real estate market.
The money has instead been used for parks, streetscapes and public-private redevelopments such as the Whole Foods market and the new Herald-Tribune headquarters.
“We believe affordable housing is a moral issue more than a political or an economic matter,” SURE spokesman John McGruder said. “We need to create a sense of urgency.”
The City Commission listened to SURE’s appeal Monday but made no promises.
Mayor Mary Anne Servian assured SURE that its message got through.
“We hear it,” Servian said. “We know it. We all understand that it’s a critical need.”
This summer, the median sales price for a home in the Sarasota-Bradenton market hit a record-high $336,800 – up 39 percent from a year ago.
Working families are getting either forced out of the area or into deplorable living conditions because of high rents and home prices, McGruder said.
SURE has raised $6,000 in pledges from its members and supporters. SURE offered that $6,000 as a challenge to the City Commission to raise significant dollars for its still-empty affordable housing fund.
SURE considers the CRA as a source of money that the city can readily tap.
In 1986, the city established a CRA for downtown. Since then, the City Commission – sitting as the CRA – has directed the extra property taxes it has collected because of downtown’s rising property values, $25 million so far, into redevelopment projects there.
The CRA district is set to expire in 2015.
SURE thinks affordable housing should be the city’s priority for CRA dollars during the next decade. It suggested that the CRA’s boundaries be extended north into Newtown, so that its funds can be spent on housing improvements in that lower-income area.
City Commissioner Ken Shelin said the city is already looking into that suggestion.
The use of CRA dollars for affordable housing would not be unprecedented in this area.
In 2002, Palmetto’s CRA contributed $460,000 to raze a dilapidated apartment complex and help acquire the land for a new 34-home subdivision being built by Manatee County Habitat for Humanity.
