Hurricane Irma wrecked a Keys neighborhood. New affordable housing just got a big boost.
A nonprofit formed to build workforce housing to help restore a Florida Keys region left devastated by Hurricane Irma will receive a $5.2 million loan from the state.
The Florida Keys Community Land Trust, established by Maggie Whitcomb, who bought properties after hurricane-damaged homes were demolished by their owners, has plans to build 31 rental homes.
So far, the nonprofit has planted on Big Pine Key four cottages that are rented at what the federal government sets for income limits in Monroe County.
“I want to have 40,” said Whitcomb, who sunk her own millions into the project. “I want to have 400. It’s so frustrating to me. I’ve got it figured out. I just need the funding to do it.”
In 2018, Monroe County commissioners unanimously approved the trust’s request for nearly $400,000 to buy four lots at $99,999 each. They are deed-restricted for affordable workforce rental homes on Big Pine Key.
The $5.2 million is part of a community development block funding from the Florida Housing Finance Corp.
Under the limits, a family of four earning $80,550 a year would pay no more than $1,813 a month for a two-bedroom home.
A modest one-bedroom home in Key West can rent for $2,000 a month. The cottages built by the trust so far have 760 square feet and two-bedrooms.
Whitcomb knows firsthand what a hurricane can destroy.
Her family suffered on the Gulf Coast through Hurricanes Camille, and years later Katrina.
“I have a special place in my heart for hurricane survivors,” Whitcomb said by phone from her home in Decatur, Georgia. “The Mississippi Gulf Coast is where I’m from.”
There are still empty spots along the coast that will never be rebuilt, she said.
Nearly half of the homes in the Sands subdivision of Big Pine Key were destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017, including the entire Seahorse RV Park.
The trust struck a partnership with Rural Neighborhoods, a nonprofit developer started after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, for the development of the Seahorse property.
The trust received $7.54 million last year in community block grant financing for the Seahorse Cottages Community, which will replace the RV park with 26 two-bedroom storm-resilient, single-family rental homes for households earning at least 70 percent of their income in Monroe County. The community will have its own playground.
“The challenge of building affordable housing in the Keys is the high cost of construction,” said Lindsey Anderson, executive director of the trust.
“Land costs are higher than any other county in the state, and labor is expensive as well, due to a shortage of skilled workers, who can’t afford to live here,” Anderson said.
Five additional houses will be built on scattered sites in the Avenues neighborhood on Big Pine at the same time as the Seahorse Cottages construction.
Construction on all of the homes is expected to start later this year with completion estimated for the summer of 2021.
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 4:25 PM.
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