As regional economic recovery continues from COVID19 and Hurricane Ian, I caught up with Charlotte County Economic Development Director Dave Gammon, who recently spoke to a group of Southwest Florida commercial realtors.
Gammon began with his unwarranted concerns about economic recovery in Charlotte County after the hurricane.
"I thought ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen with economic development? We’re going to go into a recession, and everything is going to be terrible', he recounted. "Did not happen at all. We’ve recovered and recovered bigger than before.”
He then talked about how the people in Charlotte County are looking at moving forward. “How do we balance the growth with the charm of the community? We get a lot of people saying, 'Hey you gotta stop, pump the breaks, let’s not do this anymore. No more growth'.”
“Talk about a couple of acronyms we run into when we run into development and talking with people, " he continued. "You’ve all heard of 'Not In My Backyard”'people? The NIMBY’s? Anyone know the BANANA one? Build Absolutely Nothing Near Anything. We run into that. Let’s say we do that. Let’s say we just stop.”
Gammon said even stopping economic development wouldn’t prevent people from moving here, but he admits the infrastructure would not be in place for the water, roads, and sewer needed to accommodate the growth. Gammon does believe there are better ideas out there, particularly a bill sponsored by Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo from Naples.
“What did she do? She didn’t just sit around and talk about affordable housing and how we don’t have affordable housing in the state of Florida, she did something about it. It’s called the Live Local Act."
The Live Local Act took effect on July 1. Gammon explained how the Act works.
“Take any piece of commercial property and put residential on it. You can put the maximum density in that jurisdiction and build to the highest height of any building within a mile. So it’s really a game changer.”
“And the most important part of the Live Local Act is that it’s by right. The BANANAS, the NIMBYS, the County Commissioners who I work for and I think they’re great, don’t have a say in it. This is all staff level approval.”
But Gammon said there is one condition.
“They do throw in an affordability catch. So they do say you have to build 40% affordable housing. The key in the Live Local Act is you can build workforce housing. You can build this stuff and do it affordably. I think the Live Local Act is amazing and the properties we have available to do it are also amazing.”
Karen Moore is a contributing partner for WGCU and the publisher of SWFL Business Today.
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