BY DOUGLAS HANKS III
The Miami Herald
Posted October 31, 2002
Rod Evans says there's plenty for a guy
in his 30s to like about a retirement community. No loud stereos, no rowdy
parties down the hall, no crowds in the fitness room.
Though the 39-year-old steers clear of
the mah-jongg tournaments downstairs, he says he has plenty of friends
on the top floor of the Biscaya Four condominiums in Aventura. But the
building elders don't want him to buy a unit, citing bylaws requiring owners
be 55 or older.
''I do feel discriminated against because
of my age,'' said Evans, a waiter who rents a Biscaya condo with his girlfriend,
Daphne Quiquin. He has lived there since 1994, two years before the condo
association adopted a 55-and-over ownership restriction for the eight-story
building overlooking the Turnberry Isle golf course.
Evans is pushing to buy into one of South
Florida's many seniors-only buildings just as the dynamics of retiree marketing
are pushing them out of favor. While aging home buyers once flocked to
communities reserved for retirees, developers say the new generation of
retirees wince at the senior citizen label.
''How many shuffleboard courts do you see
being built today?'' asked Bradley Hunter, a housing analyst for American
Metro Study Corp. ``Anything that has a stigma to it -- as far as being
old and as far as being retired -- I think will be a negative for them.''
With the number of Americans older than
64 predicted to double within three decades to 70 million, retirement communities
are a leading housing trend.
While age-restricted communities will remain
popular, some experts predict developers will increasingly favor projects
designed for retirees without broadcasting age as the top criteria.
''Baby boomers . . . are going to be the
biggest retirement market we've ever had,'' said Lewis Goodkin, president
of Goodkin Consulting in Miami. ``That audience is very sensitive to age.''
Such sensitivity is not a problem for Evans,
who said he doesn't mind the generation gap with his neighbors. Though
he said he isn't the youngest resident there -- federal law allows communities
like Biscaya to exempt up to 20 percent of its units from age restrictions
-- most of the people he sees are old enough to be his parents.
The Biscaya rules are based on a 1988 change
in the national Fair Housing Act outlawing discrimination against families.
Buildings had routinely barred children as residents, but the new law ended
that while carving out an exemption for elderly housing.
Communities could restrict themselves to
seniors, provided at least 80 percent of their residents were older than
54.
After adopting the restriction, Biscaya
agreed to honor Evans's lease for as long as he wanted to stay. But the
building's lawyer says letting him buy the unit would make it impossible
to turn other young people away.
''If you don't follow the rules to the
letter, you lose your ability to enforce the rules,'' said Lisa Magill
of Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Lauderdale.
Victor Schaffzin, 90, voted for Biscaya's
age limits, but now he's having second thoughts.
Schaffzin thinks the rules are hurting
resale values by limiting potential buyers, and he said he particularly
doesn't like the idea of shutting out that ''nice, young man'' on the eighth
floor. After all, it was Evans who put together Schaffzin's computer.
''He's been here for so many years,'' Schaffzin
said. ``He's friendly and helpful in every which way.'' |