In covering urban development across St. Pete, we receive a lot of questions and comments regarding the future of our city.

Sometimes we hear feedback about a new restaurant or get asked when a previously proposed development will break ground. But one topic seems to come up over and over again — the lack of affordable housing and rising housing costs in St Petersburg. These questions are tough because the answers are bigger than any one project or solution.

Over the past 18 months the City of St. Pete’s Planning and Development Services department has been working on a series of three change packages that will update the City’s Land Development Regulations (LDRs) and Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan). These charges are part of the City’s response to increased concerns over housing affordability.

Individually, the proposed changes in these packages are relatively minor, but together they’ll add more flexibility to how housing can be built in St. Pete. The hope is that this will translate to more housing units being built at lower price points.