County Approves Two Affordable Housing Projects in East Naples

The Board of County Commissioners approved two new affordable housing projects at its most recent meeting to address the need for homes for people who live and work in Naples.

One proposal calls for a 30-unit mixed-use apartment building at 3091 Tamiami Trail East, at the intersection of Andrew Drive. For the last 20 years, an abandoned fast-food restaurant has sat on the property, located only a quarter mile from the county government center. Developers said it’s long been used as a homeless encampment, but they are now eyeing a five-story apartment complex with a restaurant on the bottom floor and a bar and hookah lounge on the roof.

The second project will take over the construction of the failed boutique hotel site at 3467 Bayshore Drive, which has sat as a vacant half-finished concrete framework for several years since the original developer went bankrupt. The concrete supplier took control of the property for $100 when no one else bid on the project, and now a new developer is interested in a 32-unit multifamily affordable housing project with leasing agreements with local businesses to house their employees.

The commissioners approved both of the projects, expressing a need for more affordable units for workers and young families in the Naples area. While there is no shortage of construction for mansions and multi-million-dollar homes, they said, there remains a limited number of properties where people who work in service industries can live.

The first project will expand the existing lot, purchasing dilapidated homes to the north and east to extend an existing parking area, with an additional 24-space parking lot across Andrew Drive exclusively for residential use. All entry will be on Andrew Drive, with a single exit onto Tamiami Trail.

While some residents asked the commissioners to reconsider the project’s approval because they believed it would affect the smaller homes in the area, officials believed the project was exactly what the area needed and aligned with broader community redevelopment goals.

“I know it doesn’t seem to be popular to the few people that live on the surrounding street, but I think this is exactly what the CRA and a lot of these other organizations represent. That’s their mission: community redevelopment. It’s in the title. And sometimes it makes me wonder why you’d rather have a building that’s been empty for 25 years that has been a predominant homeless hangout,” said Board Chair and District Four Commissioner Daniel Kowal.

“The side streets aren’t trailer parks anymore. People are buying those lots up; there are multimillion-dollar homes being built. This is not the same Bayshore that we used to tell our kids not to go down; it definitely has a makeup and it’s changing for the better, and we have to understand that, I think,” Kowal added. “When you have good restaurants, cafes, possibly an opera house that’s going to employ over 100 people someday, you need to have the ability for people to live and work in the same neighborhood - and we’re going away from that … we’re quick to put a new restaurant in, we’re quick to put a new cafe in, but we’re not thinking about where these people are coming to work and serve the people in the Bayshore area.”

The second project, called Naples Landing, had more debate from county officials. Unlike the first proposal, which has a commercial component, the site on Bayshore Drive would be entirely residential and comprised of income-restricted multifamily units, with no market-rate housing, which is traditional for many affordable housing developments.

The single point of contention for the project was that, with the space available on the lot, there wouldn’t be enough room to be able to accommodate parking for every resident in the building. To offset this, developers explained that there was a nearby bus stop within 500 feet of the building that could provide transit across the county. They had also engaged with different local employers to ensure parking and transportation from their own properties instead to workers who would be living in the complex.

“I don’t think I’d just live in the apartment and go to work. I’d still want to go to Miami, I’d still want to go to the mall or whatnot. So I’m just concerned because, although that sounds great, but … when all is said and done, a lot of these residents are still going to own a car. Who doesn’t have a car now and only owns a bike? Some people, but it’s not like you can put that in their lease,” said District One Commissioner Rick LoCastro.

Some of the neighbors expressed their own doubts about the project, noting the potential issues with the limited parking space along with the density of the people who would be living in the building, which some residents cited would be likely double the 32-room count as couples and perhaps families with young children would be moving into that space.

Siobhan Cleveland, a resident and local business owner of the French-Caribbean restaurant The Real Macaw, said that while the building’s owners said they’d contacted local businesses to coordinate parking, she hadn’t been contacted, even though she has employees who would benefit from nearby housing. She also claimed the owner of the building had written statements of support for their own property, and that the housing would only go to benefit select businesses in the area, rather than all of them.

“This does not align with the vision that myself and I know so many others have shared for this,” said Cleveland. “He wrote proposals as a local business owner for his own building … I want affordable housing. I’m concerned about parking, and I’m also concerned that these units are going to be contracted out to the same people that own the other property and we’re not going to be able to utilize it as business owners. If that was the real intention for the property, why haven’t myself, who has need for employees in affordable housing, been contacted?”

Despite some concerns, the commission ultimately approved the project but also agreed to mandate an ordinance for the property at a later date that would require the property owner to provide a way for residents to access a vehicle off-site, either through agreements with an employer or other transportation.