County Commission Hears Affordable Housing Report

One of the biggest problems facing state and local governments across the country is the supply of affordable housing, and St. Johns County is no different. In Florida, the State Housing Initiatives Partnership program – or SHIP – provides funds to local governments as an incentive to create partnerships that produce and preserve affordable homeownership and multifamily housing. The program was designed to serve very low-, low- and moderate-income families.

SHIP dollars may be used to fund emergency repairs, new construction, rehabilitation, down payment and closing cost assistance, impact fees, construction and gap financing, mortgage buy-downs, acquisition of property for affordable housing, matching dollars for federal housing grants and programs, and homeownership counseling.

One of the requirements of the SHIP program is filing an annual report on local activities to promote affordable housing and St. Johns County commissioners recently heard and approved the 2024 Incentive Review and Recommendation Report for the county.

Alex Mansur, chairman of the county’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, delivered the report that lists several affordable housing incentives available in the area.

“We believe the current incentives are well-aligned with the goal of addressing affordable housing issues,” he said. “After reviewing all the incentives, we wanted to highlight two key incentives we believe as a committee would have the most significant impact in our county.”

Mansur said adopting policies to allow flexible densities and adjustments to impact fees have the potential to help ease the affordable housing crisis in the county.

“Flexible densities as we all know, allow for more housing units to be built on a single parcel of land, which directly supports affordable housing by providing smaller and more affordable housing options,” he said. “It also helps improve access to shopping and essential services for those homeowners that live there.”

Mansur said on the issue of impact fees, St. Johns County has some of the highest impact fees in the state, “which undoubtedly increases the cost of building homes.”

He said the burden could be reduced with the use of fee waivers, credit transfers or adjustments to utility connection fees.

Commissioner Christian Whitehurst suggested having a presentation on whether a reduction in impact fees “in any way, shape or form would be a good idea for St. Johns County.”

In response to a question from Commission Chair Krista Joseph, County Administrator Joy Andrews said a discussion on impact fees will take place in January.