Florida’s Yes in God’s Backyard law, also known as YIGBY<\/a>, which allows qualifying religious institutions to pursue affordable housing projects on their property, even if current zoning regulations would not typically allow residential development.<\/p>\nCity leaders said the program is administered through the Office of Community Impact in partnership with the Florida Housing Coalition and the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg. <\/p>\n
Participating congregations will receive technical assistance to help evaluate development opportunities, determine whether their property is suitable for housing and better understand the planning and approval process.<\/p>\n
The program also connects churches with information about financing options, including resources that can help cover early development expenses such as site evaluations, engineering work and architectural planning.<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg became the first city in Florida to incorporate the YIGBY legislation into its local development regulations after the City Council approved the ordinance in late 2025.<\/p>\n
Officials said the change creates a pathway for faith based organizations interested in addressing the region’s growing demand for affordable housing.<\/p>\n
The Florida Housing Coalition estimates the statewide legislation could make more than 30,000 church owned properties eligible for future affordable housing development.<\/p>\n
City officials said the initiative is intended to provide religious organizations with the tools needed to evaluate potential projects while creating additional affordable housing opportunities for residents.<\/p>\n
Educational workshops and informational sessions are expected to continue as the program expands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg, FL – St. Petersburg has introduced a new program that will help churches and other religious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[14842,148140,1644,43668,2468,712,9421,12841,481,202,204,203,199,201,200,80907],"class_list":["post-364498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-churches","tag-effort-city-officials","tag-housing","tag-initiative","tag-land","tag-law","tag-organizations","tag-program","tag-property","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-yigby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364498","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=364498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}