Pinellas leaders, businesses, developers form county-wide compact focused on affordable housing
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - It’s no secret that there’s a critical shortage of affordable housing across the Tampa Bay area. In Pinellas County, leaders are forming a county-wide compact linking communities, businesses, developers and agencies to create more affordable housing.
Carol Stricklin is the director of Pinellas County’s Housing and Community Development Department. She said the county and its partners are focused on creating affordable housing solutions.
"We understand that we’re in a housing crisis and housing that’s attainable to all walks of life is really becoming more difficult because of the limited supply of housing and increase of housing cost," she said. "So, we’re talking about housing that’s attainable to everyone, teachers, policemen, firemen, just the people that make our community function."
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The county, the planning organization Forward Pinellas and five cities in Pinellas have signed on to the Advantage Pinellas Housing Compact, vowing to work together on the issue. A spokesperson for Forward Pinellas said the group signed on because no one community or group can solve this issue alone.
Forward Pinellas also already provides a forum for all 25 local governments in Pinellas to work together on various issues.
"We feel very strongly that we need to move forward together. We need to have a common vision for housing in Pinellas County and agree to work in a coordinated way together," Stricklin said.
She said the compact is a coalition that will talk about policies that will make it easier to develop affordable housing, sustain it and work to speed up production using local, state and federal incentives.
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"It’s about setting a goal for the development of housing and bringing out a common vision to work together," Stricklin said.
They’ll talk about that vision and how to put it into motion at the Housing Summit in April. She said right now, they’re working to get businesses, non-profits, community partners, developers and the remaining municipalities to partner with them.
"Affordable housing and attainable housing benefits everyone even if that housing isn’t located in their community. So, if you’re an island community that’s very dependent upon service workers, you need to know that there’s a place in the county that they can afford to live," she said. "So really it’s in all of our interests to make sure we have attainable housing."
According to Stricklin, right now, there’s about 11,300 affordable housing units in Pinellas County. Almost 1,400 units are funded and in the pipeline across the county, she said.
The compact is part of Advantage Pinellas, a plan to address the need for jobs, housing and transportation across the county. If you want to join the compact, you can contact the county on Advantage Pinellas’ website.