TAMPA, Fla. — It's no secret that Tampa is growing—but it comes at a time when many said they're struggling to keep up with current housing costs.
According to Zillow, right now, the average monthly mortgage payment in the city is $1,569, and the average rent is $2,055.
Nathan Hagen with the group YIMBY Tampa, which stands for "Yes In My Backyard." The nonprofit advocates for affordable housing on multiple levels in the city. Hagen told us it's an issue that city officials should be paying attention to now more than ever.
"Housing is the most important issue of this next four years of [the] city council," said Hagen.
Hagen also said that a major fix for the lack of affordable housing in Tampa could come in the form of the city relaxing rules on building things like duplexes and small apartment complexes.
"Housing is not accessible to a lot of people in the City of Tampa because we make it really difficult to build different types of housing," he said.
And he added that the city council plays a major role in this effort—especially when it comes to holding housing developers accountable.
"The battle we're going to see in the next year about this that city council has the power to set, [and] this is their most powerful function, is to say that is to say that 'if you're going to build this housing, we will allow you to build twice as much homes if 10% of them or 20% of them are affordable,'" he said.
In fact, YIMBY Tampa feels so strongly about this they've created a 10-question survey for Tampa city council candidates.
The questions range from asking candidates about the true cause of the current housing crisis to the role that transportation and protection for renters play in solving it.
Hagen said the end goal is to inform voters while keeping candidates honest.
"It's all about giving people information, getting them a starting point to think about what are the issues. If housing is my issue, what are questions I should be asking my candidates in my city council? And then not only that, how can we hold them accountable after the fact," he said.
