Get workforce housing right-or else

Gulfshore Life's Community Advisory Board is made up of opinion leaders from all over Southwest Florida. We've invited them to write on local issues they're most passionate about, with the hope that you will be moved to action, reflection, recognition-or even disagreement.

This month's author is Todd Gates, president and CEO of Gates McVey, a construction and real estate development company with projects in Collier, Lee and Miami-Dade counties.

There is no doubt that we have a beautiful community. People who have worked all their lives come here and say, "This is the most amazing place in the country." It's the quality of life that brings many of us here. But people forget that the quality of life is not just about the beaches and the weather. We also must get the infrastructure right-which means the roads, the water, the sewer and workforce housing.

If you are relaxing on the waterfront and happen to have a 58-foot yacht sitting in the back yard, and you're able to drink your coffee each morning and read the paper in a leisurely fashion, your perspective is totally different than if you are a young single mom who has two jobs and you're trying to drive to work every morning and deal with the babysitters and everything else. Neither is right or wrong; they are just two very different perspectives.

Five years ago, no matter where you went-chamber associations, restaurants, coffee shops-everyone was talking about how bad the roads were. We had gone about nine years without ever paving one mile of road, but we were growing faster than any other region in the country. A lot of folks said that if we don't build roads and they get jammed up, people won't come. That's like an ostrich sticking his head in the sand and hoping the weather stops. But we learned from our mistakes and elected leaders who were pro-infrastructure, and they've done a good job.

Now you can't go anywhere without people talking about workforce housing. It's a huge issue for any person who wants to move here; it's a huge issue for employers who want to stay and attract more employees. Our hospitals, our local school systems and every large employer in the area are at a huge disadvantage because their employees average maybe $40,000 a year in pay, and there are no homes for less than $200,000 in Collier County. So it's very difficult to live here from that standpoint. But the good news is that everybody's talking about it now. The bad news is there are a lot of desperate or politically driven solutions being discussed.

One of the solutions proposed is an impact fee for affordable housing, which is politically popular. The last time I looked, adding a tax to the cost of a house doesn't make it more affordable. In Collier County there are 11 different impact fees you have to pay on new construction. Right now, our average entry fee into a new home in Collier County is close to $20,000-twice as high as anywhere else in the state (projected to be close to $27,000 by the end of the year). Lee County is approximately half of this. To me, adding cost to an already huge problem makes no sense, but it's politically popular to tax people who are not here yet.

Plus, it's not even fair. Impact fees were never charged prior to 1976 in Collier County. Almost every home built west of U.S. 41 was built before 1976. So guess what happens if Mr. and Mrs. Smith-who have been retired for many years-own a $1.5 million home and decide to sell it to Dr. and Mrs. Jones, who have three kids and a dog? The Joneses don't pay any impact fees. Yet they're going to use the same roads, the same mall, the same church, send their kids to similar schools, definitely go to the same airport and go to the same soccer fields. So who is paying the $20,000? The teachers and policemen who are living way out in the Everglades and can least afford it.

Instead, (and I hate taxes) why not charge a half of a percent of the price of the sale of every real estate transaction? If we collected this transfer fee in Collier County, you could wipe out almost all of the impact fees. It becomes a permanent revenue source for our much-needed infrastructure, and more importantly, it is fair and equitable to every citizen. Currently we are taxing the schoolteachers, police, fire fighters and nurses who want to build a $200,000 home for their family almost $20,000 (approximately 10 percent of the total house) as opposed to a half of a percent (which would be $1,000). Unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, politicians find it very hard to say, "Let's tax everyone here." It is much more politically correct to say, "Let's tax the developers; let's tax the builder." But I submit to you that as a developer and builder, I have never paid an impact fee; my end user pays the impact fees. To me, an impact fee is no different than a two-by-four or a concrete block. You add it all up, you put it on top, and you sell the house.

Another potential solution is a density increase, specifically, adding more units that are allowed to be built on an acre. Over the past 20 years, the number has been decreased to approximately three units per acre, which helped increase the cost to $500,000 per home. If we could allow six or eight units per acre, we'd have much more affordable units. And I'm not talking about transient units. I'm talking about homes for schoolteachers, policemen, nurses-people we must have who make up the fabric of our community.

We have often discussed with the county that we need to choose an area in the community where density would make sense, make sure it has the proper infrastructure, give the private sector the necessary density and the permits in an efficient manner and get out of the way. If government and we as a community can set up the rules to allow private enterprise to succeed, it will. This is what made America great. Southwest Florida is an amazing place, but I'm not sure that a lot of people who are here part-time understand some of the challenges we are faced with. What's going to happen when there is nowhere for the nurses and schoolteachers and firemen to live? It's not a problem until you have a heart attack. It's not a problem until you need your children to be taught. It's not a problem until your house catches on fire. The workforce needs to stand up, speak out and be heard. Unfortunately, we are too busy working and taking care of our families to get involved as much as we need to in politics. And the folks who are involved in politics have the time to pursue sometimes very different agendas. So unfortunately, sometimes we end up with a very vocal minority when it comes to our political structure.

We need to be thinking long-term. We must realize that people like me hope our children will be able to come back here. After college, my daughter certainly won't be able to afford a $500,000 home.

I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But we have some serious quality of life challenges that we cannot ignore. Remember there are three types of folks we all live with (including ourselves): Those who make things happen, those who wait for things to happen and those who have no idea what happened.

­­-­­­Todd Gates