Affordable Housing Opportunity, Sebastian Council to Vote on Annexation, and more!
- IRNA
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
May 9, 2026 Weekly Newsletter
Affordable Housing for Indian River County's Working Families
The Indian River County Board of County Commissioners will meet on Tuesday, May 19th at 9:00 AM to hear a presentation asking them to commit a county-owned 7.39-acre parcel at 1840 25th Street to the development of affordable housing. This is an opportunity to move beyond years of discussion and take meaningful action on a crisis that affects thousands of working families in our community.
This is taxpayer-owned land, sitting within the City of Vero Beach adjacent to the RM 10/12 zone, and it's the right location for affordable homes serving residents who earn up to 80% of the county's 2025 Area Median Income of $93,200. The City supports rezoning with a design that respects the old Florida character of the surrounding neighborhood.
To understand the necessity of this project, look at the gap between wages and the cost of living. With the county’s 2025 AMI at $93,200, a three-person family earning 60% of that median has an income cap of $50,220. Yet, a starting teacher earns only $48,000.
Furthermore, between 30% and 40% of county staff—roughly 360 to 490 individuals—earn less than $50,000 annually. These residents are the backbone of Indian River County, yet under current market conditions, they are effectively priced out of the very neighborhoods they serve.
The taxpayers own this land. The Commissioners are its stewards. Committing this parcel to affordable housing is the highest and best use of this property, and it is the right thing to do for the working people of Indian River County.
The most important thing you can do is show up. Filling the hearing room with supporters on May 19th is the single most effective way to get this approved. Commissioners pay attention to who's in the room. Be there.
If you're unable to attend in person, please send a letter to the Commissioners before May 19th using the linked form, or write your own version. Tell them that working families deserve a place to live, and that publicly owned land should serve the public good.
Don't just read this and move on. Send the letter. Share this page. Talk to your neighbors. Years of conversation need to become action, and that only happens if enough people speak up.
PFAS Well Water Testing
IRNA is offering free, certified lab testing for PFAS ("forever chemicals") in private drinking water wells. Sign up, submit your water sample, and get your results, plus learn what they mean for your health.
We are especially searching for wells at or near Blue Cypress Lake, Fellsmere, Gifford, and Wabasso.
Open to Indian River County home and business owners on private wells only (not connected to municipal water). Questions? Contact Missy@IndianRiverNA.com
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Stand with the IRNA and help us amplify our community's voice. Your support fuels the fight to protect our natural resources, hold elected officials accountable, and drive the real change our neighborhoods deserve. Together, we don't just speak up, we make an impact that lasts.
How Does Indian River County Grow
Without Losing What Makes It Worth Living Here?
Growth is coming to Indian River County. That much isn't up for debate. The question worth asking (and the one too few people are asking) is what that growth actually looks like when it arrives.
Do we keep pushing outward, stretching infrastructure thinner and eating up the land and water resources that made many of us fall in love with this place? Do we look toward density and infill which makes some residents uneasy? Or is there a middle path that nobody's found yet because we haven't had the right conversation?
That's what we're digging into at IRNA's May 27 Lunch and Learn, and we've brought in someone who can actually speak to the mechanics of how these decisions get made.
Thomas Lanahan is the Executive Director of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, and he's spent decades working in and around local planning and state-level growth mandates. His perspective is what you might call "high altitude" (he sees the patterns across the region, not just the project-by-project fights that tend to dominate local meetings). He knows where the pressure points are, what tools local governments actually have, and where those tools fall short.
If you've been following the Urban Services Boundary debate, you already know the stakes. Annexation proposals keep surfacing. Development pressures aren't slowing down. And the decisions being made right now will shape this county for decades to come. The challenge is that most of those decisions happen in increments (a rezoning here, an annexation there) without much public discussion of the bigger picture.
This conversation is a chance to zoom out. To talk about suburban sprawl and urban density not as abstractions, but as choices with real consequences for our roads, our water, our lagoon, and the character of the communities we live in.
May 27 | Noon | IG Center at 1590 Oslo Rd, Vero Beach, FL 32962 | $25/pp
Seating is limited.
The Indian River Lagoon was once clear, but all kinds of pollution from people has taken a toll on our water, our wildlife, and our way of life. Now, Sebastian is looking to annex and build houses on hundreds of more acres that drain into the St. Sebastian River and our Lagoon.
We can still protect what we love, but we have to fight for it. The Sebastian Council votes on this annexation on May 13 at 6 PM. Come to the meeting! Make your voice heard.
If you can't make it, sign the Petition here.
Thank you to Pelican Island Audubon Society for working with us on this video and campaign!
Data center proposal for rural Florida village is withdrawn (TCPalm) - Silver Fox 606 LLC withdrew its application to develop a 2.2 million square foot data center in Indiantown without providing an explanation, resulting in the loss of hundreds of potential jobs and significant tax revenue for the village.
Florida college scraps proposal to build state-funded data center (TCPalm) - Indian River State College cancelled its Okee-One data center project in Okeechobee County following significant residential opposition and a shifting stance from the state administration regarding large-scale data facilities.
Uncertain title derails county environmental land purchase (Vero News) - Indian River County cancelled a $1.57 million contract to purchase a 36-acre riverfront conservation tract near Wabasso after three companies refused to provide title insurance due to unresolved ownership gaps in the property's chain of title.
Sebastian creates new zoning for larger parcels (Hometown News TC) - The Sebastian City Council unanimously approved a new PUD-Mixed Use zoning classification requiring a 400-acre minimum to facilitate large-scale, master-planned communities centered around town centers.
County buys custom pump-out boat to help reduce lagoon pollution (Vero News) - Indian River County has acquired a custom $116,250 pump-out boat, funded primarily by grants and donations, to provide free mobile sewage removal for vessels anchored in the Indian River Lagoon to comply with new no-discharge regulations and protect the estuary from nutrient pollution.
At the recent Land and Water: Issues and Solutions forum, experts laid out a pretty sobering picture of where things stand on environmental protection in our little corner of Florida and beyond. From land conservation funding getting slashed to growth management regulations being systematically dismantled, these are issues that affect every one of us as our communities continue to grow and develop.
But the biggest takeaway from the forum was less about what's going wrong and more about what you can do about it.
Here is quick reference document with the key issues, your legislative delegation's contact information, and specific actions you can take right now (including what to tell Senator Grall and Representative Brackett about Florida Forever funding as the legislature goes into overtime on the budget). You'll also find a list of state and local organizations worth following if you want to stay plugged in.
It only takes a few minutes to send an email or make a phone call. Our delegation operates largely in the out of view, and the only way that changes is if more of us show up and make our voices heard.
WHO FUNDS THEM: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (VoteWater.org) - Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has built an $8.5 million campaign fund primarily through significant contributions from polluting industries, developers, and out-of-state dark money groups, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest regarding his duty to protect the state's residents and environment.
New North Hutchinson span to open next week (Vero News) - The new 85-foot-high State Road A1A North Causeway Bridge is scheduled to open on May 15, providing a modern $115.9 million replacement for the 1954 Saunders Drawbridge to improve traffic flow between mainland Fort Pierce and North Hutchinson Island.
Baby Manatee Soleil Released After Successful Rehabilitation at EPCOT (Chip and Company) - Soleil the manatee was successfully released into the St. Johns River in Welaka, Florida, after receiving specialized short-term rehabilitation for orphaned calves at Epcot's The Seas with Nemo & Friends pavilion.
For local army of citizen scientists, helping lagoon is ‘personal’ (Vero News) - The Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA) utilizes a trained army of citizen scientists to collect extensive environmental data on the Indian River Lagoon, directly influencing local policies such as mandatory shoreline buffer zones to combat pollution.
Florida fishing hurt by drought: ‘It’s going to take a hurricane to get this water back’ (WUFT) - Florida is experiencing its most severe drought in over a decade, causing record-low water levels that have shuttered fishing charters, depleted the Floridan aquifer, and left historic waterways like Cross Creek completely dry.
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