Miami May Ease Downtown Affordable Housing Requirements

"The city's Planning Advisory Board unanimously decided last week that it needs more time to review the agency's request to amend a 2002 master development order requiring that 15% of all residential units within the downtown development of regional impact be affordable."

"Agency officials want to extend the boundary to encompass the entire city, citing rising land costs downtown."

"The agency's request 'shortchanges the downtown community,' said Carol Gardner, president of Tacolcy Economic Development Corp., a non-profit that builds low-income housing, including the Edison Towers complex in Liberty City. 'The initial idea was to build the 15% of (affordable) units downtown. They might end up putting the whole 15% in some low-income neighborhood, which undermines what the city asked them to do.'"