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City study finds gap of thousands of affordable units; recommends zoning and policy changes
Summary
City planning staff presented the final Housing Needs Assessment, telling council the city now has a large shortfall of housing affordable to lower-income households and recommending zoning, ADU, parking and permitting changes to boost production.
City planning staff presented the final Housing Needs Assessment to Tampa City Council Wednesday, summarizing a multi-year consultant study that examined housing stock, affordability, projected demand and policy options to increase supply and affordability.
Evan Johnson, city planning, said the report analyzed household trends, unit types and zoning capacity. “Since 2010 we’ve seen household growth and smaller household sizes; smaller households equal more units,” Johnson said. He told council that the city’s housing stock has increased in large multifamily projects (50+ unit developments) but smaller multifamily (5–49 units) and duplex/triplex construction have not kept pace.
The consultant’s gap analysis estimated the city needs roughly 26,000 units affordable to households at 0–50% AMI today. Projecting forward 20 years under expected growth and an assumed AMI mix by planning district, the study said about 14,700 additional subsidized units would be needed over that period; the consultant calculated a subsidy requirement in the billions (roughly $4.8 billion over 20 years, or about $240 million per year) to close that projected shortfall through direct subsidies alone.
Finding that subsidy-only solutions are unaffordable at scale, staff and consultants recommended changing land-use and regulatory settings to encourage “missing middle” housing (duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts), expand accessory dwelling unit (ADU) policy flexibility, reduce or eliminate parking minimums in transit-accessible areas, preapprove building plans to speed permitting, and align the land development code with the future land-use map to unlock capacity the comprehensive plan currently allows.
Johnson also reviewed capacity estimates based on the city’s future land-use map and zoning: the city’s future land use could theoretically accommodate about 100,000 units without plan amendments, with approximately 70,000 on redevelopable land and 29,000 on vacant parcels. The study found that zoning and code changes — for example, allowing housing by right in certain commercial districts and increasing allowed density on transit-ready corridors — would help convert capacity into actual housing production.
Council members asked how to balance density increases with neighborhood concerns and how to ensure affordable units are built rather than luxury towers. Staff said the study’s recommendations focus on a mix of incentives, regulatory changes and targeted public subsidies to make affordable construction more feasible; staff indicated further work on program design and financing would be needed to translate recommendations into adopted policy.
Public commenters and neighborhood speakers urged protections against displacement and said incentives should be paired with anti-displacement measures. Staff said next steps include integrating the assessment with the comprehensive plan update and the forthcoming land-development-code rewrite with the goal of enabling more “by-right” housing types and targeted density where appropriate.
