Today, Mayor Jane Castor revealed key recommendations from her Housing Affordability Advisory Team that support her vision for Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow. The team is made up of subject matter experts tasked with identifying how the City of Tampa can take action to prevent housing from becoming unattainable to Tampanians.
Housing affordability is a challenge facing many cities across the country. In Tampa, this issue is compounded by the increasing demand for housing, limited supply, and rising market rates. For over a decade, the number of new residents moving to Tampa has outnumbered new housing units built.
To balance the scales, Mayor Castor identified Housing Affordability as one of her top 5 priorities for Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow.
“Housing affordability is an issue that affects Tampanians in every neighborhood and every corner of our city,” explained Mayor Jane Castor. “We have to act now to preserve housing options Tampa can afford so that all who work in Tampa have a chance to live in Tampa too. So that elderly residents don’t get priced out of their long-time neighborhoods, and so that our kids can afford to plant their own roots here someday. These recommendations and actions will help us make our housing affordability vision a reality for thousands of residents and guide us towards a brighter future for our city.”
To support this mission, the City of Tampa has already invested more than 20 million dollars into housing affordability over the last two years through a variety of assistance programs. The Housing Affordability Advisory Team recommends expanding these programs and identified other recommendations to support this vision.
The key recommendations from the advisory team fall into three categories:
1. Supply and Programming
2. Policy and Alignment
3. Community Outreach and Engagement
For Supply and Programming, the team recommends that the City develop a Community Land Trust to streamline the process of acquiring, managing, and making land available for development. To increase the supply of housing, an RFP will be issued for the development of an 18-acre parcel of land currently owned by the City in West Tampa.
In addition to increasing housing supply, the team also recommends expanding programs that make it easier to buy and restore homes.
The second recommendation, Policy and Alignment, focuses on updating land development codes to eliminate unnecessary costs and hurdles. This includes making strategic changes that address both housing and transportation needs and streamline the process of developing residential projects.
Lastly, the Advisory Team recommends that the City improves Community Outreach and Engagement by synthesizing housing assistance information in one central location and by utilizing various communication channels to increase awareness of existing housing programs.
These recommendations will serve as a roadmap to meet housing affordability goals and progress towards Mayor Castor’s Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow vision.
To learn more about the Housing Affordability Recommendations and Mayor Castor’s Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow vision, visit tampagov.net/T3.
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