Counties get creative with land use to add affordable housing

Key Takeaways

As housing prices skyrocket and stock dwindles, counties are getting creative with land use to keep up with the need for affordable housing. Orange County, Fla. is working to develop affordable housing on land owned by religious institutions and Fairfax County, Va. is exploring co-locating its libraries with affordable housing. 

Orange County turned state preemption into an opportunity to expand its affordable housing stock and fulfill some of the goals outlined in its 10-year affordable housing action plan, according to Nicolas Thalmueller, Orange County’s planning administrator.

Florida’s Live Local Act preempted county zoning restrictions, mandating that local governments allow multifamily or mixed-use residential developments in areas zoned for commercial, industrial or mixed use. Developers are incentivized to build through sales tax exemptions on building materials and property tax exemptions, and as a result, at least 40% of the units must qualify as affordable or workforce housing for a minimum of 30 years. 

“We started analyzing ‘What is our need here in Orange County? What type of properties? How would this look on the ground?’” Thalmueller said. “And we realized very early on that this tied in perfectly with the goals of that [county] Housing For All action plan, which calls for promoting affordable housing stock and reducing regulatory barriers.”

A team of county staff involved with planning, zoning, housing and the Office of the County Attorney came together to determine the feasibility of using religiously owned land (also known as faith-owned land or church property) for the development of affordable housing and gauge interest from local religious institutions. 

“We realized that it really left the door completely vague and open to let us do the assessment, do the analysis and determine — based on our specific local needs and criteria and context — exactly how we wanted to do it,” Thalmueller said. “So, I don’t know if that’s what the state intended to do, but that’s the way it worked out.”

While the state statute only requires 40% of the units built in accordance with Live Local to be affordable, Orange County’s Affordable Housing for Religious Institutional Lands program is taking it a step further, mandating that all of its units meet the county standards for affordable housing, according to Thalmueller.

The program was designed to be flexible but also includes measures to ensure that existing residents won’t be negatively affected, such as height restrictions around building next to single family homes, Thalmueller noted.

“One thing we wanted to be very careful about was that when you think of a lot of these religious institution properties with some leftover land, a lot of them are tucked away in existing neighborhoods,” Thalmueller said. “And while we do have the goal of promoting affordable housing and increasing the housing stock, we wanted to ensure that, especially if this is going to be an administrative review and approval process, that we built in as many checks and measures to ensure that any development was going to be compatible with existing areas.”

The Orange County Board approved the Affordable Housing for Religious Institutional Lands program in March, and the county housing team is now working on education and capacity efforts with interested property owners, according to Thalmueller. While the program won’t completely solve Orange County’s housing crisis, it’s “another tool in the toolbox” and serves as an opportunity to activate underutilized urban areas, he noted. 

“I wish the state would do more of this,” Thalmueller said. “To unlock more doors and let jurisdictions figure out, based on their own specific needs and context, the best way to implement it in their communities.”

Fairfax County is another jurisdiction applying creative land use tactics to meet the gap in its housing needs.  The county has set a goal of creating 10,000 net new affordable housing units by 2034. 

Work outlined in the county’s newly completed action plan includes increasing zoning flexibility, streamlining approval processes and other regulatory adjustments.

Fairfax County’s Housing Task Force “looked at some of the impediments to housing production and how the planning land use and regulatory processes could be improved to create more opportunities for smart density and density around the county,” said Anna Shapiro, Fairfax County deputy director for real estate finance and development. “… From soup to nuts, there’s an effort in the county right now to really look at land use critically.”

Fairfax County is facing a shortfall of 13,800 rental homes for households earning at or below 60% of the Area Median Income. Many people who work in the county are priced out of living in it, Shapiro noted.

One of the ways the county is working to address that gap is through co-locating two of its library branches with affordable housing.

“Everybody at all income levels has a contribution to make in our community, and it’s important that we think about them,” Shapiro said. 

“… We are investing in these properties, and we’re investing our county funds and projects to grow our community to improve the health of our community, to provide housing for jobs and also to make sure that there is stability for residents, both who have lived here and those who are coming to make this their new home.”

Fairfax County has co-located affordable housing with community and senior centers, so co-locating with libraries is a “really natural extension of that,” Shapiro said. The county is in the process of hosting public engagement sessions for feedback on what the projects could look like.

Co-locating the libraries with affordable housing will reduce overhead costs, in addition to construction and maintenance costs, for the county, noted Eric Carzon, Fairfax County Public Library director.

“Increasingly, as land and project and budget resources continue to get scarcer and scarcer, co-location makes a lot of sense,” Carzon said. 

It won’t be the first time a local jurisdiction has co-located its libraries with affordable housing. Miami-Dade County, Fla. built 76 units of permanently affordable housing for formerly homeless and low-income families above a library branch, and the city of Chicago has also found success with co-locating its libraries with affordable housing. 

“Co-locating libraries with affordable housing provides housing and learning centers where they are needed — and makes communities more resilient and sustainable,” Molly Sullivan, Chicago Housing Authority senior director of communications, told the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “We know that housing is vital to our neighborhoods, but strong, healthy communities also require anchors that provide resources for lifelong learning.” 

The two Fairfax County libraries that would be co-located with affordable housing need renovations, and the co-location structure enables the use of Economic Development Authority bonds, which have more flexibility than library bonds and will speed up the building process, according to Carzon.

“That gives us access to more money to borrow for this project, and sooner,” Carzon said. “Otherwise, we’d be waiting probably the good part of a decade to start these capital projects.”

Staff at the two library branches have provided input on potential building upgrades, including the creation of study rooms, maker spaces and an updated technical operations center, Carzon noted. 

All projects going through re-zoning are required to propose proffers that mitigate the impacts of a proposed development, such as improving sidewalks, installing a new bus stop or building out more parking around the libraries, according to Shapiro. The projects are a win-win for the libraries and the county housing goals, Carzon noted.

“As a public-private partnership, it enables us to do more, and more quickly, and spread some of our costs around, because in a campus situation, the partners might take on aspects — for instance, parking,” Carzon said. “… But it also enables the partners access to land and resources in a time frame that otherwise would literally be impossible.”