ORLANDO, Fla. – For the first time in decades, thousands of people in the city of Orlando will have a new person representing them at City Hall.
Five people are running to replace District 3 Commissioner Robert Stuart in the city council race this November. Stuart is retiring after 20 years in office.
District 3 includes neighborhoods like Baldwin Park, Audubon Park, Rosemont and College Park.
News 6 anchor Lisa Bell sat down one-on-one with each of the candidates in the non-partisan race:
Lisa asked each of them the same set of questions and dug deeper on certain topics as needed, including why they are running and what is the top issue facing the city. Click on each candidate above to watch the full interviews.
Throughout those conversations, two issues rose above the rest: housing affordability and transportation. Each candidate framed the problems similarly but proposed different tools and solutions to address them.
Election Day is Nov. 4, with early voting from Oct. 27 to Nov. 2.
To find your polling place, head to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections website.
Here are the candidates in their own words.
MIRA TANNA
BELL: What do you think is the biggest issue facing District 3 and the City of Orlando?
TANNA: Really, there are two issues, transportation and housing, and they’re both linked together. Whether you’re a commuter stuck in traffic for hours, or you’re trying to take the bus and you have to take three buses to get to work, or you worried about sending your kids to bike to school, everybody that I’ve been hearing from talks about the transportation challenges. And especially for young people who are getting their first job, it is really hard to find a place to live that’s affordable to them. We have an affordable housing crisis in Orlando.
BELL: What are some of your ideas to face those two challenges?
TANNA: “So I really want to see more transit-oriented development, so that not every adult has to own a car in order to be able to work and we can do that by expanding our investment in public transit. I would love to see Sun Rail expanded up the 441 corridor, and to have the LYNX buses go more frequently to have more routes so that we have more coverage and to increase the appeal of LYNX so that people will decide to use public transit. Then, we won’t need as much space for parking and we can use that space to build more affordable housing.”
ROGER CHAPIN
Roger Chapin emphasized affordability from a municipal government perspective. Noting that city commissioners can’t control interest rates or insurance costs, but he wants to focus on transit, zoning and walkability as well as keeping government efficient.
CHAPIN: When I listen to voters, affordability is on their mind. And so you think, as a city commissioner, what does that mean? You know, we’re not in charge of interest rates. We don’t handle insurance. But there are some areas. So, when I think of affordability, I think about expanding transit. I think walkability, where you can walk from your neighborhood to Edgewater Drive or Ivanhoe or Corrine Drive. I think about utility rates. I currently serve on the Orlando Utilities Commission. We have the lowest rates of any of our competitors, any of the municipal competitors, and any of the investor-owned utilities. So you think about property taxes, regulations, trying to keep government making our lives easier, not harder. So I think about affordability in that manner on a local level.
BELL: And just going back to housing affordability, what specifically do you think that the city could do or should do to lower prices?
CHAPIN: Yeah. So I served on the municipal planning board several years ago. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer put me on the Municipal Planning Board. There are planning tools you can use related to density, so that’s bringing more units online in neighborhoods and areas where it’s density appropriate. I also served on the Downtown Development Board when we built the performing arts center and we would give incentives to people to live downtown. We would give incentives to people who live near transit to ride SunRail. So those are some of the tools you can do to have more units online to encourage people to live in places where there’s more density and we can get more units online.
CHRIS DURANT
Chris Durant framed housing affordability as the top issue and called for zoning reform to allow a broader mix of housing types across neighborhoods.
DURANT: Number one, I believe, is housing affordability. It’s becoming increasingly unaffordable to live here. 1500 people are moving here per week, according to a report, and we’re not meeting the need of those people when it comes to our supply of housing. So, I believe we need some policy reform when it comes to zoning in the city of Orlando and I want to bring that. We also need to work with small-scale developers in bringing that affordable housing here.
BELL: What type of policy reform?
DURANT: I believe zoning reform, when you go through Rosemont, you see all types of variety of housing. You see single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, it doesn’t stop. And I believe we need that diversity in all of our neighborhoods. I believe that’s instrumental in making our city more affordable.
SAMUEL CHAMBERS
Samuel Chambers proposes making the city’s affordable housing trust fund a recurring, required source of money. He also supports inclusionary zoning and policies that encourage accessory dwelling units (ADUs), townhomes and quadplexes.
CHAMBERS: Well, you go to each neighborhood and they have various different issues, such as you go to Rosemont, development is a big issue, protecting green space. You go to College Park, it’s about the Edgewater Redevelopment Plan, same thing within Audubon Park with Corrine, making sure neighborhoods are walkable and bikeable. But I think the largest issue we see in Orlando that I hear from voters is affordability. So I think the ways we address affordability is one, investing in our affordable housing trust fund. According to city code, there is a trust fund, but no amount of money is required to actually go towards it. So, I would like to make that a hard re-occurring amount. I also believe when you do a better job through what’s called inclusionary zoning, we have what’s called the problem of the missing middle, where seemingly the only housing options are apartments for rent. Or houses that can go up to a million dollars, and there’s not really affordable options in the middle. So, making sure we properly zone neighborhoods to include things like ADUs, townhomes, quadplexes, things like that.
KIMBERLY KISS
Kimberly Kiss emphasized the role of the commissioner as a community connector: engaging residents, building partnerships with neighboring jurisdictions and inspiring public involvement to make coordinated progress on issues that extend beyond city boundaries.
KISS: The City of Orlando as a whole, we know some of the biggest issues are homelessness, and that’s not just an Orlando issue. That is a regional issue. Transportation is also going to be a huge regional issue and there are regional coalitions that are working on that. What I see and the role that I’d like to play as commissioner is really engaging the community. So, if Orlando says, hey, I want to solve the homeless problem or the transportation problem, it’s not going to be able to do that on its own. We really need to engage residents and inspire them to be involved and I think that comes from just making really strong connections.