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West Palm Beach leaders detail housing ordinance, technical assistance grant and racial-equity review
Summary
City officials said they recently passed a housing ordinance with affordability incentives, won a Florida Housing Coalition technical assistance grant to increase Black homeownership, and launched a racial and ethnic task force to review policies across multiple sectors.
West Palm Beach officials told FIU panelists that the city is pursuing multiple steps to expand affordable and workforce housing and to address racial and ethnic disparities in housing and other municipal programs. Jennifer Ferriero, director of Housing and Community Development, said the city recently passed a housing ordinance that offers incentives to developers who set aside units for affordable and workforce housing.
“We’re incentivizing development and developers to set aside some units for affordable and workforce housing,” Jennifer Ferriero, housing and community development director, said. She described programs to create homeownership opportunities for low-income residents, rental-assistance and home-repair programs, and incentives for mixed-income development downtown so residents with differing incomes can live in the same buildings.
Ferriero said the city won a technical assistance grant from the Florida Housing Coalition called Closing the Gap; she said West Palm Beach was one of two municipalities in the state selected for the two-year grant to help increase Black homeownership rates. Separately, city staff described a mayor-convened racial and ethnic task force reviewing internal policies and programs in criminal justice, education and workforce, finance and banking, health, and real estate and housing.
Frank Hayden, director of Economic Opportunity, described programs targeting small and minority-owned firms, and said the city will start a loan program in the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 offering certified SBEs and MWBEs loans in the $5,000–$20,000 range to help firms win and perform city contracts. Hayden also described a sheltered-market program that limits competition for some projects to certified small firms.
Panelists emphasized the city’s intention to preserve affordability for existing residents during neighborhood development and to use an equity lens to shape policy. Officials did not provide ordinance numbers or vote tallies for the housing ordinance during the panel and did not give precise targets or timelines for units produced under the incentives.
