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Palm Beach County’s affordable housing scam | Randy Schultz
By Randy Schultz
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Oct 11, 2022 at 3:23 pm
A recent mailer in support of Palm Beach County’s affordable housing bond referendum looks very civic-minded.
Don’t believe it.
The mailer comes from Hometown Housing Trust. It features first responders and teachers and asks voters to support the $200 million bond program on the Nov. 8 ballot.
Hometown Housing Trust also has a website. It promises that the referendum will deliver 20,000 homes and apartments for “the people who keep us safe and provide so many of the things that make Palm Beach County a great place to live.”
The problem of affordable housing is real. But here’s the reality of Hometown Housing Trust.
Randy Schultz is a Sun Sentinel columnist. (Mike Slaughter / Sun Sentinel/South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
Behind this political action committee are developers and their representatives who helped to cause the affordable housing crisis by not building enough affordable housing in the first place. Now they want public subsidies for developers, overseen by county commissioners who get donations from those same developers and their representatives.
Hometown Housing Trust had raised nearly $400,000 through Sept. 29. One of the largest contributions — $25,000 — came from GL Homes.
The company’s headquarters actually is in Broward County. But given how many homes the company has built in Palm Beach County, “hometown” might not be a stretch.
Very little of that building, though, has been affordable housing. As The Palm Beach Post reported, GL lobbied the county to relax rules that required builders to include affordable units in their projects. In just two examples, GL avoided having to build roughly 700 such units, which have lower profit margins.
The company is now offering to build 277 moderately priced units near Boca Raton — but only if GL Homes can build 1,000 high-end homes where rules now don’t allow them. The trade could mean an extra $750 million for the company.
Under Florida law, the seven commissioners and top administrators can’t campaign for the afordable housing referendum. So the Economic Council of Palm Beach County and CEO Michele Jacobs are taking the lead. Which brings us to Hometown Housing Trust.
A GL vice president serves on the council’s board. So does an executive from Minto Communities, which donated $10,000. So does an executive from Florida Crystals, which donated $50,000. In addition to producing sugar, Florida Crystals has a real estate operation.
Indeed, almost all of Hometown Housing Trust’s donations have come from developers or their representatives. One of the many real estate lawyers who donated serves on the council’s executive committee. He’s a registered lobbyist for GL Homes.
Another lawyer/contributor works for the firm whose address is that of Hometown Housing Trust. Several other contributors are council board members.
The group got $25,000 from The Richman Group, which builds multi-family housing. Another $25,000 came from Miami-based Pinnacle Communities, also a multi-family builder.
Just for good measure, Hometown Housing Trust got $1,500 from Ron Book. He’s the very well-connected Tallahassee lobbyist whose daughter is a state senator. From Broward County.
The Palm Beach Post also reported that the economic council helped to craft the referendum at the request of home builders, who resisted options that could cost them. The proposal thus would shift responsibility for solving the problem onto the public and away from the industry that created it.
Hometown Housing Trust’s mailer says the referendum is all about helping regular folks. The money says otherwise.
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