Manatee County is facing a familiar Florida squeeze, with busy roads, rising prices, and a fight over whether to develop rural land. WUSF’s “Florida Matters Live & Local” took the question to a live audience at the Manatee Performing Arts Center.
The county’s population is growing, and with it the demands on infrastructure. The program asked what residents will have to give up, and how leaders can balance a growing population against tight budgets. Guests were Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse, Taylor Neighbors, CEO of the nonprofit Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, and Michael Snipes, an associate professor of economics at USF St. Petersburg.
Kruse argued that local incentives tend to favor housing for households earning up to 120% of area median income, and that the focus should shift to lower-income residents. He said smaller homes, duplexes, and tiny-home communities could add options without the infrastructure strain of large apartment complexes. “We need to start building the bottom and let it funnel down,” he said.
Neighbors said Manatee counted 931 people experiencing homelessness on one January night, but about 3,300 people experience homelessness over a full year. She said people seeking help face paperwork, eligibility hurdles, and limited rental assistance, and that even social services workers struggle with housing costs. “The world of social services, just to be rather blunt here, is convoluted,” she said.
Snipes said rising housing prices reflect more people moving to Florida, along with other cost pressures, and that local governments have limited control over many of those forces. He said he opposes Amendment 3, warning that lower tax revenue could mean less money for roads and other public services.
Snipes’s warning gets at a question voters will weigh. Is the answer to rising costs more government revenue, or fewer regulatory and financial barriers to building?
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