Some citizens criticize exemption for developer
By Teresa Sargeant
Reporter
The Apopka City Council unanimously approved the four-party multi-family affordable housing developer’s agreement for the school impact fee exemption for Southwick Commons, amounting to $1,296,192.
The vote took place at the April 2 City Council meeting and puts in place an agreement between the city of Apopka, Southwick Commons LTD, Orange County and the Orange County School Board. The impact fees are for Orange County Public Schools (OCPS), not the city of Apopka.
The developer sought approval of the developer’s agreement for the school impact fee exemption, according to the city staff report in the April 2 City Council agenda packet. OCPS approved the agreement on Feb. 26, according to a staff report in the April 2 City Council agenda.
The agreement is pending approval from the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, which is set to consider it on April 22.
Located at the southeast corner of Alabama Avenue and East Sixth Street, Southwick Commons is a multi-family development comprised of 192 units that was previously approved as an affordable housing development.
Housing that meets or exceeds the definition of “affordable” as defined by Florida Statutes may be subjected to an exemption of all or part of the school impact fees, per the Orange County code.
Before the City Council voted, residents raised concerns about how the impact fee exemption would affect school funding.
“Here we have Orange County Public Schools crying for money, and now they’ve approved—this is more of the rubber stamp issue approved,” resident Rod Olsen said. “The aspect, oh, we’ll waive this. Our schools are underfunded. We need to do a better job.”
Dr. Phyllis Olmstead suggested there should be a sliding scale based on income level of residents at Southwick Commons, to avoid deficits. She said the agreement may not consider various income levels within the apartment complex.
“I think that there needs to be a sliding scale that if it’s 20% needy and the rest regular or high income, that it needs to be sliding scale that only 20% gets waived or 30% gets waived because we can’t make a deficit of the education system,” she said. “This is ridiculous to waive all the funds going for all the children.”
Southwick Commons previously faced an uphill battle in getting greenlit for construction at the Apopka City Center in downtown Apopka.
In 2022, the city rejected the proposed Southwick Commons for the City Center because the development didn’t meet the developer’s agreement with Taurus Southern Investments, the City Center developer, and the company that sold the apartment property to Wendover Housing Partners, which builds low-income housing.
The Apopka City Center developer’s agreement called for luxury dwellings to attract high-income earners who would have more disposable income for spending at the Apopka City Center.
Wendover then sued the city in late 2022 and won a judgment that said the city could not discriminate on approval of the apartment complex based on its funding source. Wendover had received more than $40 million from various governmental entities to build the rent-controlled apartments.
Among the issues that the city had was the lack of balconies on the apartments. After discussions with Wendover, 35 of the Southwick Commons apartments will have full-sized balconies and the others will have step-out verandas.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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