Palmetto senior affordable housing proposal falls to the wayside - for now

A proposal to potentially replace an approved site plan for a seven-story, 150-unit residential building in the 700 block of Haben Boulevard with a 90-unit senior affordable housing development simply came too late.

Two weeks ago, Beneficial Communities asked the Palmetto City Commission to reconsider a prior approval of the highrise development in favor of their proposal, but stressed that a timeline to submit the tax credit application to the Florida Housing Finance Corp would not accommodate a delay in the decision.

The commission was not comfortable offering a $37,500 incentive to Beneficial without a more detailed proposal and though the reconsideration moved to Monday night for a vote, Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant said it was too late to take any action for now.

“(Benficial) reached out to me and we had a meeting to discuss the timeline and he basically had until Dec. 2 and that would not have given him or staff the time to work together to meet that deadline,” Bryant said. “I did encourage him to come back, if the property was still available when the (tax credit) cycle begins again.”

Maryland-based Riviera West LLC currently has the approval for the highrise development, which was approved in a 3-2 vote in early November. The company owns the 6.28 acres across from the Manatee School for the Arts, which it purchased in 2006 for $4.2 million at the peak of the real estate market. Currently the land is valued at $777,730.

Though Riviera West now has an approved site plan, ZNS Engineers’ Rachel Layton indicated development of the highrise in the near future was unlikely because the property, as well as the approved site plan, “is currently being marketed.”

Beneficial has been active in Manatee County with other tax credit projects that have yet to come to fruition. Only one tax credit project in Manatee County has been funded to date — the 72-unit Grand Palms senior housing development now under construction on 14th Street West in Bradenton, but that was not a Beneficial project.

Beneficial Communities was expressing interest in the site and was proposing a $37.5 million senior affordable housing development that would provide much less density to the approved highrise project. But to develop the project meant relying on the competitive and often lucky tax credit process that ultimately comes down to a lottery drawing. About 200 projects are submitted each cycle with only about 20 being funded.

Commissioner Tamara Cornwell said while she liked Beneficial’s proposal, to come before the commission with a last-minute deadline without a detailed proposal was “ridiculous. They wanted money from the city without having done any of the work they needed to do. To come in and say, ‘I have a deadline,’ under those circumstances, well then get your act together.”

Riveria West’s site plan approval has a three-year stipulation to begin construction. Each commissioner said they would encourage Beneficial to return during the next tax credit cycle with a better prepared proposal.

This story was originally published December 5, 2016 at 9:59 PM with the headline "Palmetto senior affordable housing proposal falls to the wayside - for now."