The following Letter to the Editor was published in The Daily Sun on March 23, 2023.
My neighbors recently defeated a proposal to increase the number of residents in a house that functions as an assisted living facility. They cited changes in density and property values.
In a county where workers and families and the elderly are challenged to find any housing they can afford, homeowners might want to reassess our stance on these two issues. Density increases organically; is life demonstrably worse when we house 350 people per square mile vs. 275?
Realtors will tell you – and the banks who appraise your property – that having a group home around the corner decreases the value of your property. But that decrease in value is a figment of market participants agreeing that a group home is a negative in a neighborhood.
If homeowners and home buyers were to agree that a group home increases the value that a neighborhood contributes to society – if we were all to say “yes” to some multifamily housing units in our collective backyards — we could extend our prosperity to renters
Lorraine Moneypenny, Port Charlotte
(Ed.:Lorraine is Charlotte Dems’ Vice Chair. Thank you for speaking out!)
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