Essential Workforce Housing

Key employees, or our essential workforce, are median income families or below including teachers, nurses, law enforcement workers, emergency services providers, medical technologists and hospitality industry employees.

These individuals work in the jobs/services that are essential to keep our economy and our county growing.

The EDC and the business leaders of Okaloosa County are striving to identify and remedy the problem of attainable workforce housing within Okaloosa County; a common  problem with other communities within the State of Florida as well as around the Country.

In 2005 the EDC formed the Workforce Housing Initiative to include Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, and Walton Counties as well as Eglin AFB to address the current housing needs and the influx of BRAC realigning military personnel and their families.  Eglin AFB reports being able to accommodate 20% of the 7,000+ military personnel moving to the area as a result of the BRAC realignments.  The other 80% will need to live in the civilian communities; our cities and towns.

Eglin's housing privatization: http://www.eglin.af.mil/Housing_Privatization/

Click here for information on current initiatives.

Our objective is attainable workforce housing not affordable/subsidized low-income housing. For more information on low income/subsidized housing contact the Okaloosa Development Corporation.

2006 Workforce Housing Symposium
Please note that PowerPoint presentations may take a minute to load.

• Dr. Rick Harper, Director, University of West Florida Haas Center
       "Stating the Housing Challenges"

• Chuck Shanklin, President, Crestview Aerospace Corporation
        "What is Affordable Housing?"
• Felix Beukenkamp, Building Industry Association
        "Sales Price Breakdown for Houses"

• Shelley Lauten, Director, Urban Land Institute-Florida Initiative
      "Building Florida's Future: State Strategies for Regional Cooperation"

• Sean Garretson, TIP Strategies, Austin, Texas
      Private & Public Sector Solutions to Attainable Housing

The overriding concern expressed at the Symposium was the ability of median income families to obtain median priced homes.  The issue is not that the income level is too low, but that the housing cost is too high and availability is too low.  A shared problem from employers is that they are not able to recruit new employees into the area because they can not find comparable homes for their families.

A resultant housing task force spun out of this symposium to identify the barriers and solutions.

Task Force Mission

• To locate, analyze and communicate solutions and programs for affordable workforce housing,

• To maintain county-wide collaboration in order to identify the current and future workforce housing needs,

• To provide communication as one-voice throughout Okaloosa and its sister counties

What is affordable workforce housing?

For the purpose of this committee the definition of affordable workforce housing is as follows:

Affordable workforce housing targets families making between 80% and 120% of median income with a commute of less than 15 miles with payments of 30-35% for rent or a PITI of $1,000-$1,500 monthly.

Walton County Workforce Housing Survey
June 2006, UWF Haas Center
The availability of workforce housing is an increasingly important issue for policy makers, employers, and employees as rising housing costs exceed the financial reach of many low to moderate income earners...

Eglin Installation Growth Committee Merger

In support of Eglin’s Vision 2015, the Okaloosa Board of County Commissioners initiated their three-county growth management plan, the Eglin Installation Growth Committee.  To eliminate redundancy the EDC Workforce Housing Committee merged with County’s Eglin Installation Growth Committee Housing Sub-Committee.   The umbrella of this committee consists of twelve executive committee members with eleven sub-committees.

Essential Workforce Housing Committee

Goal

• Focus on strategies for affordable or workforce housing to accommodate the incoming military growth.

Objectives

• Affordable/attainable workforce housing

• Housing market trends and prices

• Base housing; on and off

• Upgrade current housing

Committee Chairperson
Ellen Holt
EMH Enterprises, eholt@emhenterprises.net

Members

• EDC Representatives

• Okaloosa Chambers of Commerce

• Okaloosa County Planning Department

• Building Industry Association

• West Florida Regional Planning Council

• Eglin AFB Representative

• Emerald Coast Association of Realtors

• Okaloosa Community Development Corporation

Together we will help enable the citizens of Okaloosa County to obtain the homes that fit into their quality of life.

Priorities

1. Review and eliminate regulatory barriers, both state and local.

2. Eliminate the cap on the affordable housing trust fund and increase the Sadowski Act eligibility percentage of median income from 120% to 150%.
   Spoke to the Okaloosa Legislation Delegation in January 2007.  Wrote letters to our local legislative delegation requesting the cap be lifted and the median income raised to 150%.  Governor Crist's January Special Session addressed this request.

3. Identify federal, state and local land available for both rental and homeownership.
   Current use and future land use maps are being studied not only to identify vacant land but land that can be redeveloped.

4. Create a Community Land Trust
   The local Community Development Corporation, 501(c)(3), has taken on the coordination and management of a county-wide CLT.  The City of Destin has initiated a city CLT.

5. Address housing insurance availability and costs
   Governor Crist called a Special Session in January to confront Florida's insurance crisis.

6. Assess travel patterns between work and home.
   Currently housing is in one end of the county and employment is in the other.  An extensive county-wide assessment was conducted on a regional policy of a job-housing balance. Develop a regional and Eglin AFB policy for a jobs/housing balance; part of Eglin's housing privatization.  Establish Employer Assisted Housing Programs.

7. Identify Builders' and Developers' needs and incentives
   Time is $, quicker turn-around time on development orders, permits and inspections.  Working with local builders and the Building Industry Association to identify needs and incentives.  Create a "toolbox" of incentives.  Manatee County has a Rapid Response Team to use as a model.

8. Create Urban Centers.
   Urbanism.  Higher density and mixed use. An extensive county wide assessment conducted on a regional policy to encourage a jobs-housing balance.  The relationship between employment centers and residential concentrations identified.  Consider mixed use, land use, and zoning districts.  Possibly amend comprehensive plans to lift architectural barriers.

9. Post-BRAC Economic Impact Analysis
   Following the 2005 BRAC Process, the realignment timelines and numbers keep shifting.  The UWF Haas Center was engaged by the EDC to conduct a three-county analysis to identify current timelines and net numbers with resultant community impact.  Eglin reports the ability to house only 20% of the incoming personnel.

* For additional information contact Kay Rasmussen, EDC Director of Defense & Economic Initiatives and the Essential Workforce Housing Committee Secretary.

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