Housing for All of Lake County held its annual Housing for All forum on Nov. 17 at Clermont City Center. The forum was hosted by the City of Clermont.
Sixty business and community leaders attended, along with representation from Lake County and the cities located in Lake. Presenters from around Florida came to share what other communities are doing to create more affordable housing.
Dave Sobush, Director of Research for Fl Chamber of Commerce Foundation shared that housing prices are still climbing in Lake County and another 400,000 people are expected to move into Lake County by 2030. Thousands of job openings are unfilled due to the lack of workforce housing.
Susan Cashwell. Assistant Assistance of Community Development Dept of Osceola County, shared that Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) will allow more affordable housing as they have eased restrictions and reduced fees to encourage homeowners to add another home to their existing home to provide housing for family members and renters.
Tamara West, formerly from Polk County Government, and now a Technical Advisor at Fl Housing Coalition reported that millions of federal dollars are available for Lake County to use to create more affordable housing.
CEO, Jaimie Ross, formerly a land use and real estate lawyer initiated in 1991 a broad-based coalition that successively advocated for passage of the Sadowski Affordable Housing Act. These funds now provide Lake County with millions of SHIP dollars that are allocated towards affordable housing. She shared how governments in Florida can now approve new affordable housing units, through staff approvals, eliminating the long and costly process of public hearings utilizing HB 1339.
HB 1339 expedites the process to allow developers to move quickly to create much-needed affordable housing. Lake County, per Fl University Shimberg Report, reports that Lake County currently needs 35,000 more affordable housing units.
The forum ended with lunch provided by Carrabbas Italian Grill -Clermont with Ms Ross asking attendees how government and private businesses can solve the affordable housing crisis.
