bad aspects<\/a> of Live Local even worse,\u201d Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Ben Sorensen said. \u201cIt allows more properties outside of the existing zoning to be used for huge Live Local projects without any city oversight. That\u2019s more places where Live Local could be rammed down our throat and have a profound negative impact on our neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\nSenate Bill 948, introduced by State Sen. Stan McClain, R-Ocala, aims to override local regulations aimed at controlling the types and sizes of homes that can be built. The bill would allow homes to be built on lots as small as 1,200 square feet and limit local zoning control over setbacks and density. In addition, owners would not be required to live in the home, potentially triggering a rise in vacation rentals.<\/p>\n
Proponents of the bill say it gives developers more flexibility to build on smaller lots.<\/p>\n
Critics say it will have a catastrophic impact on neighborhoods by preempting local zoning laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bill is working to kind of apply Live Local on single-family lots and allow for more townhomes and cluster home developments next to single-family homes \u2014 and that\u2019s not what we want,\u201d Sorensen told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.<\/p>\n
Existing zoning would be out the window, impacting neighborhoods all over Fort Lauderdale, Sorensen said.<\/p>\n
Chris Williams, president of the Coral Ridge Homeowners Association, called Senate Bill 958 an \u201c(expletive) disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his neighborhood, local zoning allows a developer to build 4.4 homes per acre.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you change the zoning, you have potentially devalued other people\u2019s properties,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThat would be catastrophic. People would go bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new bill might stimulate needed growth in a more rural county, but it\u2019s just not needed in a crowded urban area like Fort Lauderdale, Williams said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to stimulate growth,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to make more places for people to live when the people who live here are already bursting at the seams. Let them go to Charleston. Or Tallahassee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams also blasted the idea of turning a school into a Live Local project.<\/p>\n
\u201cHoly (expletive),\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a train wreck. Schools are on the edges of residential areas. Now we\u2019re going to put a Live Local project there and increase traffic tenfold all day long. Holy smokes. The inmates are running the asylum. It would be catastrophic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marilyn Mammano, a community activist and retired planning expert, eviscerated the so-called Starter Homes bill during a recent City Hall meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here to cry \u2018House on fire,\u2019\u201d Mammano said of Senate Bill 948. \u201cLet\u2019s only hope that it dies a well-deserved death. Because if it lives it will be a catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the bill were to pass, Mammano predicted the character of single-family neighborhoods would be forever changed, transformed into locales full of tiny duplexes, townhomes and vacation rentals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tallahassee people have bought into this developer dream that if you keep increasing density, houses will become more affordable,\u201d Mammano said. \u201cIn a closed system, increasing the supply does reduce the price of the commodity. But we don\u2019t have a closed system. This is America. People come. You keep building, they keep coming. The price doesn\u2019t come down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice Mayor John Herbst defended the Starter Home bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the rowhouses and brownstones in Brooklyn were on narrow lots,\u201d he said. \u201cNo lot lines whatsoever. They\u2019re cheek to jowl. And when people wanted a backyard, they moved out to Long Island. The reason New York worked, the density made it possible for 8 million people to live in a relatively congested area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building four townhomes on a small lot will indeed increase the housing supply, he noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasing density does increase supply,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd nobody has repealed the law of supply and demand. As more people move here, they\u2019re going to bid up the price of existing houses. If we do not create more housing, then the price of existing housing goes up more than it will if we create more housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bottom line: \u201cWe have to create more housing,\u201d Herbst said. \u201cWe\u2019re not creating more land. So we have to repurpose the land that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Dean Trantalis said he was inclined to agree with Mammano.<\/p>\n
State legislators seem oblivious to the impact the Live Local Act is having on cities like Fort Lauderdale, Trantalis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is paying attention up there to the impact it\u2019s having on communities like Fort Lauderdale, like Miami, like Tampa,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at completely changing the identity of our neighborhoods because someone in Tallahassee has decided that this is how the rest of Florida needs to be accommodated. But there\u2019s a right way of doing it and there\u2019s a wrong way of doing it. And this is definitely the wrong way of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida lawmakers, in their zeal to boost affordable housing to accommodate the state\u2019s surging population, have come up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,28,249,251,250,114,266,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-168621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-broward-county","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale","11":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","12":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}