Orlando broke its promise to Washington Shores

It didn’t take Orlando City Hall long to break its land-use promise to the Washington Shores community.

Last year City Hall teamed up with the Hannibal Square Land Trust to push through a mixed-use and housing development on the corner of Orange Center Boulevard and Tampa Avenue.

Community land trust site on Orange Center

One of the key features of the land-trust proposal was to include a three-story mixed-use development.

(Watch community land trust officials assure Washington Shores residents that the project would be limited to three stories in height by clicking here.)

This past Monday (2/24), Orlando City Commissioners quietly approved an ordinance that would let the mixed-use part of the development soar to six stories – double the height of the apartments at Pendana on Orange Center Boulevard – across the street from community land trust site.

Both black city commissioners – Regina Hill and Bakari Burns -- rubber stamped this decision.

The ordinance to increase the height was hidden in the consent agenda where numerous issues are grouped in one item for a quick vote.

Now the mixed-use building on the community land-trust site will be able to look down on the 1- and 2-story homes in Bunche Manor. Until this vote the building height was limited to 35 feet. Now the community land trust developers can build up to 60 feet in the mixed-use section.

From the outset many longtime Washington Shores residents strongly opposed the community land trust scheme at this site – where people can buy town houses on the site, but they would not own the land.

Area homeowners strongly objected because they said the project would be out of character with their long-established community of conventional single-family homes.

City officials rammed through this project and claimed the community land trust was a strategy to offer affordable housing. Many residents did not believe the city and fear the community land trust is an underhanded way to spread gentrification to Washington Shores and ultimately force them out of their homes.

The gentrification fears are understandable because wealthy developers, predatory real estate agents, speculators and Orlando City Hall have driven thousands of people out of the nearby Parramore community. Long-term black residents in Parramore are being replaced with more affluent white residents and high real estate prices.

For more on this topic and other critical issues in urban Orlando, listen to the 32805 Spotlight podcast by clicking here.