Covenant House is seeking approval to build 76 garden-style apartments in Fort Lauderdale. The proposal also calls for 500 square feet of commercial space alongside the residential units.
The proposal was covered by The Business Journals, whose real estate editor Brian Bandell covers South Florida commercial development. Covenant House Florida already operates services for young people in the city: the nonprofit says it provides short-term shelter for youth ages 18 to 22 who are experiencing homelessness, according to Covenant House Florida. The organization also describes a transitional housing program offering fully furnished, scattered-site apartments with up to two years of case management, per the same source.
The proposed apartments raise a question about how they would fit into Covenant House's existing mission: whether they'd house clients directly or serve some other purpose.
What the Live Local Act Requires
Florida's Live Local Act is codified at section 166.04151 of the state statutes.
To qualify, the statute says at least 40% of a project's residential units must be rental units affordable for at least 30 years. For mixed-use residential projects, at least 65% of total square footage must be used for residential purposes. The proposal would need to meet these conditions to qualify for the law's streamlined approvals.
A Crowded Pipeline Across Broward
The Covenant House filing lands amid a wave of Live Local Act activity across the county. Attorney Keith Poliakoff said 26 Live Local projects totaling 10,000 housing units were under construction, with another 238 projects totaling 70,000 units in the pipeline, as reported by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Poliakoff also said Broward County is short 147,042 affordable housing units, based on recent studies, underscoring the scale of the gap these projects aim to address.
Statewide data offers more context on where this activity is concentrated. The Florida Housing Coalition said it evaluated 89 identified projects through February 2025 for its location analysis, finding that 70% of those projects sit near industrial land uses. The organization's dashboard also noted that Miami-Dade County accounted for over half of all known Live Local Act projects as of early 2025.
Other Fort Lauderdale Projects Moving Forward
Covenant House's proposal is far from the only Live Local project moving through Fort Lauderdale right now. An eight-tower project at the Galleria mall recently received the required administrative approval, with plans for 30-story towers totaling 3,144 residences, the Sun Sentinel reported this month. The project's West phase includes 1,163 residences, including 473 workforce housing units, while its East phase includes 1,981 residences, including 800 workforce housing units.
That Galleria development still must clear additional hurdles — including traffic, water-management, school-capacity, and sewer-related requirements — before it can obtain building permits, according to the same report. Elsewhere in the city, Affiliated Development has broken ground on the Cove Live Local Act apartments, a project that will reserve 55% of its units for workforce housing, per the South Florida Business Journal.
Together, these projects illustrate how Fort Lauderdale is becoming a testing ground for the state law's promise of faster, more streamlined approvals for housing developers. Whether Covenant House's proposal clears the statutory bar, and how quickly it might move through the city's review process, remains to be seen.
