ORLANDO, Fla. – The city of Orlando, for better or worse, is a Boomtown. The man at the center of handling that growth is Mayor Buddy Dyer.
Dyer, who was first elected to lead the City Beautiful in 2003, said this would be his last re-election campaign. Voters will head to the polls on Nov. 7.
Orlando’s longest-serving mayor sat down with anchor Justin Warmoth for an in-depth conversation on a number of issues. Below is a portion of the interview, including a viewer question, that focuses on how the city is handling growth.
[RELATED: Orlando’s mayoral election is Nov. 7. What you should know about the candidates]
WARMOTH: What would you say to someone who feels that you prioritize businesses and tourists over the residents?
DYER: I think each has its role. I don’t want to shy away from saying we’re trying to drive the economy and businesses. If you don’t have business in your community, you’re not going to be a very good community. In fact, we’ve been ranked No. 1 in the country for the best place to start a business for the last five years and we’re proud of that. But certainly, taking care of our residents is our primary concern as a city government.
WARMOTH: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing Orlando today?
DYER: I would say the issue related to both affordable housing and homelessness. The issue relating to homelessness is exacerbated by the difficulties we have on the affordable housing market. We have 1,500 people moving to Central Florida, not just Orlando, but Central Florida basically every week. That means it’s put a lot of pressure on the housing stock we have. Rents have gone up. Single-family housing has gone up. The young married couple who didn’t have a baby and wanted to move from their 250,000 dollar starter home into something closer to let’s say 400,000. That house now costs 750,000 or 800,000 so you feel that at every level.
WARMOTH: Do you believe Orlando is doing enough, do you believe you’re doing enough, or what more can be done to get a hold of this affordability crisis, specifically when it comes to housing?
DYER: So, there’s a couple of aspects we talked about. It’s pretty much at every level, so it’s not just the affordable housing aspect, which there’s a real deficit there. I think on that aspect the city’s done a good job. Over the last five years, we’ve helped to create over 3,100 affordable units within the city of Orlando. We’ve also helped to create the Parramore Stabilization Fund with the Central Florida Foundation. We helped to purchase 81 single-family existing units in Parramore, rehabbed them, and then put them into a trust that keeps the rent down. The people who were already in those units are able to stay in those units at prices they can afford to stay there. The other end of the market, we’re only going to solve by creating more housing.
WARMOTH: Does the rapid growth we’ve experienced surprise you?
DYER: In some ways it does, but in other ways... you’ve lived here your whole life. I’ve basically lived here my whole life. I was born here in Orlando. And you know what a great quality of life it is here in Orlando. People are moving here for opportunity. What’s interesting to me is we were ranked No. 1 for remote workers, which means there are more people living here and working remotely, not just for Orlando businesses, but working remotely for a company that may be based in Atlanta or Dallas or somewhere else. I don’t know how I feel about that. In some sense, it speaks to the quality of life. In the other sense, they’re not necessarily benefiting our economy because they’re not filling jobs here in Orlando, but they are driving up housing costs. They’re using our roads. So, they’re contributing to all of the things that growth causes.
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