City considers purchasing Peary Court property

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Despite architects’ plans to proceed with building 48 new affordable housing units in Peary Court, Key West City officials want to explore purchasing the 24-acre property to ensure the existing affordable housing on the site remains intact.

Key West City Commissioners voted unanimously June 16 to open discussions with White Street Partners, owners of Peary Court, to see whether it would be interested in selling the 157-unit subdivision, which currently is rented to tenants at rates that qualify under the city’s affordable housing guidelines.

White Street Partners originally purchased the property in 2013 for $35 million with the intent to raze the existing rental properties and replace them with high-end single family homes. Part of that project included building 48 units of designated affordable housing, bringing the total number of new units to 208. But unable to overcome skepticism from the Key West Historic Architectural Review Commission (HARC), the developers decided to scrap their plans, keeping the existing rental housing and building the originally planned 48 units of new affordable housing.

Still, city commissioners voted unanimously to open discussions with White Street Partners to purchase the property.

“I brought this forward because I think we need to be able to protect and preserve the affordable housing we have existing,” said Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, who sponsored the resolution.

Based on a report written last year by former planning director Don Craig, Key West needs an additional 3,000 units of affordable housing to meet the demand from teachers, service staff, police, firefighters and anyone else wanting to live and work in a resort city where housing prices continue to rise into the stratosphere. City officials are aware of the need but creating more affordable housing is difficult. Although the city owns vacant land that might be suitable for new housing developments, it needs a developer partner to finance the project and oversee construction. That has been a primary hurdle, as developers make more money building luxury housing, which is also in demand in Key West.

Although several commissioners had questions about the feasibility of the city purchasing Peary Court, they wanted to proceed with discussions with White Street Partners.

“A lot of the questions I have would be answered in this process,” said Commissioner Clayton Lopez. “I’m all for it.”

“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” said Commissioner Mark Rossi.

Commissioner Teri Johnston pointed out that with the estimated 3,000 units of needed housing, the city needs several solutions, not one.

“The easiest thing for us to do is retain existing affordable housing. We have to approach this in multiple ways,” she said.

Peary Court Holdings, owned by White Street Partners, is the company developing the 48 new affordable units on the site. Plans to proceed with the $4 million construction are being reviewed by the city Development Review Committee.

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]