The Urban Land Institute has announced the winners of the annual ULI Housing Awards. Winners, selected by a jury of housing experts, were honored Oct. 7 at ULI’s fall meeting in San Francisco. Representatives from the Palm Beach County Planning, Zoning & Building Department attended.
The Palm Beach County Workforce Housing Program was selected as a recipient of the Robert C. Larson Workforce Housing Policy Award, an annual program that recognizes exemplary state and local programs, policies and practices that support the production, rehabilitation or preservation of affordable and workforce housing.
County Administrator Verdenia Baker, who spearheaded the county’s housing efforts, acknowledged the importance of workforce housing. “Palm Beach County has worked tirelessly to bring all of our housing partners to the table in an effort to increase the availability of workforce housing in all areas of the county,” she said. “It is great to be recognized with this award, but even greater are the results that the working families in our community are seeing every day.”
Palm Beach County’s inclusionary zoning program was created to help counter the effects of a dramatic rise in median housing prices. The program, developed through a task force with representatives from the building, economic development and advocacy communities, calls for a percentage of units in certain new residential developments to be affordable to households earning between 60 and 140 percent of the area median income. A total of 36 development approvals with an affordable housing component have been completed since the program was initiated.
