In a workshop before Tuesday night’s meeting, the Fort Walton Beach City Council discussed workforce housing as it pertains to the city.

• Back on November 10, 2020, City staff presented an overview of the City’s housing objectives and incentives and workforce/affordable housing programs throughout the state.

Now, city staff has drafted an ordinance, which would amend Chapter 4 of the Land Development Code (LDC), to add Section 4.10 – Workforce Housing.

Section 4.10 would create an optional workforce housing program to incentivize workforce housing through various development incentives.

• The draft ordinance defines workforce housing and income levels and defines the eligibility and requirements to participate in the program.

Proposed incentives include:

• Density bonuses
• Parking reductions
• Accelerated development review
• Potential financial incentives based on funding availability

According to the city, the details contained within the proposed ordinance were developed with input from stakeholders within the development and housing industry.

“We really need to define what workforce housing is,” said City Manager Michael Beedie. “I think we throw around workforce and affordable housing, all in the same breath, but in reality, we’re looking at true workforce housing.”

Beedie told the council that the city is going to have to get involved somehow because they don’t have developers knocking on their door willing to cut profit margins to make housing more affordable.

The involvement will likely be more on the financial side, whether than means the city buying properties and partnering with developers, or by waiving fees.

“The city is going to eventually have to have skin in the game,” he said. “We’ve actually been meeting with a lot of the stakeholders over the last two years to try to figure out what types of incentives would really spur this type of development.”

Click here to view the proposed DRAFT ordinance.

Workforce Housing Incentive Fund

Upon City Council adoption of this ordinance, a Workforce Housing Incentive Fund will be created with an initial City contribution of $1,500,000 from General Fund Unrestricted Fund Balance. Replenishment of the Workforce Housing Incentive Fund will require City Council approval during the annual budgeting process.

According to the draft, any workforce housing development meeting the criteria in this section may qualify for funding from the Workforce Housing Incentive Fund. Requests to utilize this Fund shall be brought to City Council for consideration and approval.

• Additionally, funding requests to utilize the Workforce Housing Incentive Fund will be evaluated on a first come, first-serve basis and until the Fund is depleted.
• City Council has the sole authority to replenish the Fund.

Beedie says that the city has been working with the military through the Tri-County Partnership and stated that workforce housing is one of the top priorities for the military.

“They’re interested,” he said. “They have the most land in the area so there could be possibilities where they do a 50 or 99 year land lease for a development.”

Bernard Johnson, with Florida Light & Power and also the FWB Housing Authority, told the council that FP&L will continue to waive costs for under grounding utilities that will save the developer quite a bit of money.

• “We will continue to do that, and it doesn’t look to go away anytime soon,” he said.

City-owned land for workforce housing

Later that evening at the Council Meeting, the Fort Walton Beach City Council adopted a Resolution declaring that all City-owned property has been reviewed and that no property has been identified as appropriate for affordable housing.

According to city documents, Florida Statutes requires each municipality to prepare an inventory list of all real property within its jurisdiction that is appropriate for use as affordable housing. This has to be done every three years.

On August 17, 2021, city staff was provided a complete list of all real property to which the City holds fee simple title.

• After reviewing all currently vacant property, staff concluded that no City-owned property would be appropriate for use as affordable housing at this time.

The criteria used to determine

According to Growth Management Director Chris Frassetti, there was a combination of factors used to determine if a particular property would be appropriate for workforce housing.

“When we looked at all of the properties, we also looked at the property location, the zoning of the property, and the existing use of the property,” said Frassetti. “The existing use of those properties is where we came to this conclusion.”

Frassetti said that moving forward, there are some properties that could potentially be appropriate, especially as the discussions around affordable/workforce housing continue throughout the year. However, none at this particular time were currently appropriate for workforce housing.

The future of workforce housing in FWB

“This isn’t something that the city is going to tackle on its own,” said Beedie. “We’re working with other utility companies and other organizations, all the way from the state to the federal level.”

“It’s going to take a team to really tackle this problem but I think this is a good start.”