Politics

Poll shows Fort Myers voters tiring of subsidizing apartment construction

Published

2 weeks ago

January 19, 2025

As real estate experts point to a glut of Fort Myers apartments, a new poll shows the public concerned about plans for more units.

St. Pete Polls found 76% of voters in the city do not believe Fort Myers needs more apartment complexes. Moreover, more than 89% of those surveyed oppose public subsidizing of such projects or any guarantee of profits to developers.

The numbers came out as Fort Myers city officials consider the future of a 11.4-acre site that once served as home for the News-Press and which could become apartment towers or be part of an effort to create a regional park amenity near downtown.

The pollster surveyed 274 registered votes in the city on Jan. 18 and 19. The survey was conducted for Florida Politics. Results have a 5.9% margin of error.

The questions reached voters less than a week before the Fort Myers City Council takes a significant step toward considering a deal to develop the former News-Press site on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

That site has been owned by the city since 2019, but Catalyst Community Development wants to purchase 9.8-acres of it for $11.5 million. City Council members on Tuesday will vote on advertising a March 3 hearing on a potential purchase agreement for the property. As proposed, the developer would build at least 600 new residential units on site, along with up to 50,000 square feet of retail space, as much as 150,000 square feet of office space, a hotel with 140 to 160 rooms and a 24,000-square-foot grocery store.

But the St. Pete Polls findings suggest little public appetite for an apartment-heavy development on the land. It also suggests a desire among voters for the city to shift its focus from residential construction to economic development.

Pollsters asked voters about the city’s current plan to add 6,800 new apartment units in the city. Nearly 90% of voters would prefer the city fund economic development, which receives no funding at all right now, while just 10% want a focus on increasing apartment inventory.

Asked specifically about the News-Press site, about 89% of those polled would like the site to be part of a larger Midtown-Downtown redevelopment project while only 11% want the land handed to a single outside developer.

Pollsters asked if voters would prefer if part of a $100-million park and recreation bond go toward redeveloping the News-Press site as part of a Central Park-like project. More than 67% endorsed that idea, with 33% opposed.

The poll findings also follow a market report by CoStar saying the Fort Myers multi-family housing market is “facing significant supply headwinds that will impact fundamentals over the next few years.” It suggested renter demand is still up in the city but not growing at the same rate new apartments are being constructed.

StPetePolls 2025 FortMyers January19 B5JXW8 on Scribd

Post Views: 0

Source link

Politics

Gov. DeSantis teases budget proposals, including tax cuts and Highway Patrol pay hike

Published

16 minutes ago

January 31, 2025

May Greene

‘They’ve done a lot of missions in addition to just the normal stuff. So they deserve that.’

While formal budget and spending proposals aren’t available yet, Gov. Ron DeSantis says they’re coming by the “end of the weekend” as required.

And though he was true to his word when he told a Destin audience that he was “not going to necessarily go into a lot of it” on Friday, DeSantis mentioned some ways he wanted to help people keep more of their money.

On at least one of them, Floridians will be able to make that decision if DeSantis gets his way.

He said that “any taxes we can eliminate” are up for grabs, including a move to “crack down on property taxes in the state” through a constitutional amendment on next year’s ballot.

“Homestead deduction needs to dramatically increase for people,” DeSantis said, given the increasingly high cost of housing driven by “demand” and other factors, including insurance rates.

The administration will “be working over the next year, year and a half to see what we can present for voters to be able to vote in the next election for some major, major property tax limitations and relief,” along with “some other tax stuff.”

Spending will increase in one way, meanwhile, with proposed pay increases for highway patrol troopers pending in light of deployments to the Mexican border.

“They’ve done a lot of missions in addition to just the normal stuff. So they deserve that, and we’re going to make sure that we get that done,” DeSantis said.

Post Views: 0

Source link

Politics

Tom Fabricio measure would keep some complaints against law enforcement, correction officers confidential

Published

47 minutes ago

January 31, 2025

May Greene

Law enforcement officers and correctional officers could have certain complaints lodged against them kept off their records if a new bill filed Thursday passes.

Miami Lakes Republican Rep. Tom Fabricio’s measure (HB 317) would exempt records of any investigations made into complaints against a law enforcement officer or a correctional officer from their personnel file under certain conditions.

Complaints filed against officers would be required to be given under oath and submitted in writing, and if an officer is subject to an interrogation that could lead to disciplinary action, then all information related to the investigation would have to be given to the officer or their representative before any interrogation into the allegations could begin, according to the bill.

That would include the names of the person or persons who filed the complaint, all witness statements, and any supporting evidence such as incident reports, GPS locator information, and video and audio recordings.

Florida statute currently states, “all information obtained pursuant to the investigation by the agency of the complaint is confidential,” and is exempt from public record until the investigation “ceases to be active” or until the agency decides whether to file charges against the officer.

The measure would amend that statute, adding that the officer be “provided a copy of the complaint signed by the complainant under oath before the effective date of the action.”

Current law already allows officers facing disciplinary action the right to address the findings with their respective agency heads before any disciplinary action can be imposed.

However, the new measure would allow such records to be left out of an officer’s personnel file if the investigation into their conduct did not end in disciplinary action. Furthermore, the existence of the investigation would not affect an officer’s ability to be promoted, get a pay raise, or receive a commendation.

Under the bill, the contents of both the complaint and the investigation would remain confidential until a final determination is made by investigators. The bill does not guarantee continued employment for officers under investigation.

The bill would further protect law enforcement and correctional officers protections by establishing penalties against those who make false complaints. Under the bill, someone found guilty of filing a false complaint could be charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

If passed, the bill would become law on July 1.

Post Views: 0

Source link

Politics

Gov. DeSantis ready to ‘get in the game’ of migrant transfers to GITMO

Published

2 hours ago

January 31, 2025

May Greene

President Trump has ordered the Cuba-based detention center to be prepped for full capacity as part of his deportation push.

Saying Guantánamo Bay is a “hell of a lot closer” to Florida than Martha’s Vineyard, Ron DeSantis reiterated interest in sending migrants there in accordance with a Donald Trump executive order.

“I think it’d be a great place, quite frankly, to have criminal aliens,” DeSantis said Friday in Destin, adding that Florida is “going to be able to assist” moving undocumented immigrants to the base in Cuba.

The Governor has made this case all week that the state is a logical launching pad for deportations.

DeSantis posted to social media Wednesday that he’s “happy to send flights from Florida down that way with deportees in tow,” in the wake of Trump saying he’s telling the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to “begin preparing the 30,000 person migrant facility at Guantánamo Bay” for an influx of undocumented immigrants.

“What better state to take advantage of that than the state of Florida,” he told podcaster Dave Rubin Tuesday.

DeSantis also said this week “deputized” state forces who can “make the same decisions” as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol could also “take them back to Haiti or the Bahamas or wherever they are coming from, right on the spot” if they “intercept them on the sea.”

The Trump Executive Order calls “to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States, and to address attendant immigration enforcement needs … in order to halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty.”

It does not contemplate a state role in extradition or extraterritorial transport.

Post Views: 0

Source link