Lauderdale weighs cheaper housing downtown

Pressured to foster development of lower-priced apartments and condos downtown, Fort Lauderdale officials pushed forward a menu of possible programsWednesday.

The high cost of housing in Broward, compared to local wages, is often cited by public officials and community leaders as one of the region’s top challenges. The county is requiring Fort Lauderdale to create an affordable housing policy for downtown. The county previously agreed to allow 5,000 more downtown multi-family units to be built, but under the county’s mandate, at least 15 percent must be “affordable.”

In Broward, that means a family with an annual income that’s no more than $76,920 spends no more than 30 percent of it on rent or a mortgage. That equates to a monthly rent of no more than $1,923.

But with steep land downtown, developers prices aren’t offering those prices government subsidies.

Fort LauderdaleMayor Jack Seiler said the county will be looking for a policy that will actually create affordable housing, not a half-hearted program enacted just to meet the requirement on paper.

"I thinkwe have to be careful we're not squirming out of affordable housing requirements," Seiler said.

Fort Lauderdale elected officials and residents who sit on the city’s planning and zoning without board met Wednesday and agreed to give these programs more review, leading up to potential adoption later this year:

FEE: A residential developer in Fort Lauderdale could pay a fee instead of offering housing below the market rates. The city would hold the fees in a trust fund and use them to subsidize affordable housing projects. In Chicago, for example, the fee is $100,000 per residential unit, Fort Lauderdale city