Breaking down Pinellas County’s Housing Action Plan

Hey, TBAY.

We didn’t fully understand The Advantage Pinellas Housing Action Plan that dropped at the 2023 Homes for Pinellas Summit last week. So we got to Googling.

Pinellas County and Forward Pinellas drafted this step-by-step plan for tackling the housing shortage, the high cost of homes, and homelessness in the county over the next 10 years.

Here’s the breakdown:

Getting denser

• Add different housing options like townhomes + tiny homes. (Hello, diverse housing)
• Leaders hope to boil down existing rules of where contractors can and can’t build — making it easier to construct new homes
• One way to add new homes would be to build on underdeveloped + unused government land

Monetary solutions

• Create new funding sources (like loans for contractors) to develop more affordable homes near the louder and buzzier bus terminals and highways (aka “transit corridors”)
• Support low-income families with housing prices that will remain permanently stable — through shared equity homeownership (a deal between a lender + a homebuyer, in which they share ownership of the property)
• The plan also calls for financial assistance for home improvements
• Reduce homelessness through short-term rentals + monetary help from the county, tailored to each resident