MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Wed, Feb. 09, 2005

URBAN POLICY
Where will South Florida workers live?
BY MICHAEL PUTNEY
mputney@local10.com

Hardly a day goes by that my Herald isn't stuffed with slick real-estate inserts. You know the ones I'm talking about -- the glossy fold-outs that show swanky apartments in glass-and-steel high-rise towers with breathtaking views. And equally breathtaking prices: $400,000 is usually the low end of the spectrum.

I look at these inserts with bemused detachment, pleased at some abstract level that some of the buildings are reclaiming neighborhoods that had been deteriorating. But lately I've looked at these new condo ads and wondered: Where are the people going to live who'll be displaced by gentrification? How will our young school teachers and cops and FP&L workers and everyone else earning less than $50,000 a year be able to buy a home? And if they can, where will those homes be?

''People are being forced out of their neighborhoods,'' Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Joe Martinez noted the other day at a workshop meeting on the Urban Development Boundary. ``We can't just keep pushing people out.''

He's right, but I confess that I don't have much confidence in the Miami-Dade Commission or any other elected body to confront the affordable-housing problem head-on. That's because the zoning lawyers, real-estate developers and contractors who have pushed the UDB to its limits, and now want to push it out further, are the same people who fund their election and reelection campaigns. Who do you think is going to have more sway on the next vote to move the UDB, the superintendent of Biscayne National Park or the executive director of the Latin Builders Association? Both got a polite reception before the commissioners, but when push comes to shove -- as it inevitably will -- the smart money will be on the LBA.

Not that the LBA and other home builders are the villains here. I'd say that role was played to perfection here in the 1970s and '80s by bought-off politicians and weak-kneed bureaucrats who failed to write or enforce concurrency laws or demand impact fees ensuring that roads, schools, utilities and other infrastructure needs preceded or at least accompanied development. The home builders lobbied against any added requirements, arguing that they'd price their homes out of the reach of most buyers. They made the same argument about tougher building codes after Hurricane Andrew.

Of course, none of their dire predictions came to pass. Buyer demand easily met the home-builders' supply, even as prices rose sharply. If you haven't taken a ride through deep South Dade lately, you'd be amazed at the sea of mostly modest houses that march on and on through fields that used to grow tomatoes, beans and strawberries.

The boom there is not over. A new study prepared for the county says that the Homestead area will add 102,000 housing units and 370,000 residents by 2025. By then, Homestead will undoubtely be an urban center. But for now, most of the people who live there and in deep South Miami-Dade spend hours daily getting to and from their jobs in northern parts of the county and even Broward.

That's part of the reason why Miami-Dade has for some years had an ''Eastward Ho!'' development policy. Instead of building out, restricted by the UDB, the guiding principle has been ''urban in-fill'' and redevelopment.

The result is either smaller, denser close-in housing developments or knocking down old structures and building upwards. Right now there are more than 100,000 condo units in varying stages of development in South Florida, according to Metrostudy. More than 8,600 single-family homes were built in Miami-Dade last year, a record.

Which is fine if you're a young professional earning upwards of, say, $100,000 a year. But what about those folks who are struggling to buy their first home? According to the 2000 Census, the median household income in Miami-Dade is $38,819.

The Paris-based company that owns CocoWalk is one of the few developers interested in building housing for moderate income buyers. Constructa wants to build a 33-unit condo south of the Miami River in East Little Havana with prices starting at $147,000. Mayor Carlos Alvarez should hand-carry their applications through the permitting process.

President Bush is beating the drums for an ''ownership society,'' and it's an appealing concept. Who doesn't want to be an owner, not a renter? But the downside of the ''ownership society'' is government that no longer sees its role as a mediator between society's owners and renters, a protector of the latter from the rapacious urges of the former. It's government that prefers ''privatization,'' too often another name for social Darwinism.

It's ironic. Wealthy folks don't mind having a maid or nanny as a ''live-in'' or a chauffeur living above the garage; they just don't want them living next door. Of course, maybe the workers don't want to live next door, but they certainly want to live in their own home.

Is the ''ownership society'' open to all, or is it just a restricted club?