Broward officials have come up with a unique idea to raise money to address the countywide affordable housing crisis: Use funds from expiring Community Redevelopment Agencies, or CRAs, and relocate them.
Each city can have one or multiple CRAs that they oversee, but all of them require county approval 鈥� and county money 鈥� to stay in operation. CRAs are established for 30-year terms, and when that term comes to an end, they can either be renewed or allowed to 鈥渟unset鈥� or cease operation.
CRAs have primarily been used as a vehicle to spur commercial development, but now there is a unique opportunity to roll their funds into affordable housing.
The County Commission decided to allow many of these CRAs to sunset and redistribute those funds. Half would be allocated for economic development, the other half would go into an affordable housing fund.
READ MORE:Broward moves forward with affordable housing master plan, calls on cities to 'share the burden'
One proponent of this strategy is County Mayor Nan Rich 鈥� who thinks the plan doesn鈥檛 go far enough. She wants to see 100% of expired CRA money to be used for affordable housing.
鈥淭he current state is a catastrophe,鈥� she said, 鈥淚f you look across the county, close to 62% of the county's cost-burdened, meaning that it's costing people more than 30% of their income for housing, and half of those are at 50%.鈥�
She claims that a housing development in Hollywood made 110 affordable units available but received over 21,000 applications for those units.
For this year, the county expects to have $9 million in expired CRA funds, but if Rich gets her way by 2032 the county would have access to $72 million per year.
Even if the money is available, some cities are still reluctant to build affordable housing. Those extra units can strain the demand for public safety and infrastructure. But Rich says the problem will soon be too big to ignore.
鈥淚 think more and more people are understanding it because their employees and people who work in their city can't find places to live.鈥� she said. 鈥淪o I think the more that impacts every municipality, the more municipalities we鈥檒l have joining us.鈥�
For now, the expired CRA funds will still be divided between affordable housing and economic development, but the commission will re-evaluate that split next year.
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