Broward County needs to come up with an estimated new 218,000 homes to help meet its growing population, and in the decades to come it might mean the redevelopment of shopping centers, county leaders said.
Broward’s population now surpassed more than 1.9 million, according to the U.S. Census, using 2023 numbers.
And county officials said they are anticipating a population increase of about 294,000 people by the year 2050, according to the medium estimates from the Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) at the University of Florida. BEBR also estimates the county’s population could peak as high as nearly 2.7 million.
“Where are they going to go?” asked Ralph Stone, Broward County’s director of the Housing Finance Division at a recent presentation of the Broward County Planning Council. “We’re out of dirt, so that’s a problem. And the locations we have are expensive.”
Broward County is mostly built out, said Jo Sesodia, director of Broward County’s Urban Planning. There is just 12 square miles, or 2.8% of vacant developable land left. And just 4.6 square miles of that is designated for residential use, she said.
That leaves leaders in a lurch where to find places to build.
A likely contender: The redevelopment of commercial areas, including big box retail, to create “higher density residential.”
“I expect … those areas to be redeveloped over time,” Stone said, possibly over a 20-year period. “There will likely be less physical retail simply due to online shopping/delivery continuing to grow.”
Five years ago, residential was not allowed in commercial corridors. “But this is changing rapidly as these areas are marketable for residential/mixed-use redevelopment,” Stone said after the presentation. “These areas will experience higher density of redevelopment and this is the appropriate location for that type of reuse.”
The concept has state support: The “Live Local Act” also preempts local zoning laws, and allows developers to build units in commercial and industrial areas as long as 40% of the units are affordable.
County officials said there is also the lingering issue of how pay for it.
Broward officials will continue to set aside taxpayer dollars to encourage developers to build affordable housing.
Next year’s take will be an estimated $20 million of “gap financing” in the county budget to pay the difference between what the developer has to spend on construction and what they would be able to borrow. Without the subsidy, county leaders say the developments might otherwise never be built.
“It’s expensive,” Stone acknowledged, and Broward is among the most “cost-burdened” metro areas in the country for renters. The average rent for a two-bedroom is $2,800 a month, he said. That means a family needs an income of at least $80,000 to be able to pay for a two-bedroom unit, he said.
And this summer, the median sales price of a house clocked in at $638,000 median home price.
“Affordable housing is no longer a social issue, it’s a No. 1 for the business community and future health of Broward County,” Stone said.
The largest segment of the growing population by the year 2050 will be seniors over age 60. They already make up a significant part of the population “but tomorrow will make up an even larger cohort,” Sesodia said, referring to the pending “senior tsunami” of aging residents and the effects of that growth that will change public policy, such as a new focus on transportation to encourage seniors to stop driving.
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash
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