31 Pinellas County Churches With Land for Affordable Housing
Acquisitions associate, national affordable housing owner and developer headquartered in Los Angeles · Pinellas County, Florida, then the Gulf Coast · August 31, 2026
What they knew
A national affordable housing owner and developer headquartered in Los Angeles holds more than 10,000 LIHTC units and buys land for 100-to-200-unit builds in Florida, California, and the Mid-Atlantic. Florida's Live Local Act lets a church build affordable housing on its own land, so the acquisitions team wanted every church in a county with three or more acres, a decade on the site, and a board that could say yes. The assessor lists thousands of exempt parcels but not spare acreage, denomination, or who decides. They had been finding sites one conversation at a time.
What they asked
Find every church in Pinellas County on three or more acres that has been there at least ten years, tell me how much of the land is unused, whether it's independent or run by a diocese or district, and who the decision maker is.
What MAIA did
Found every church in the county
Assessor use codes and exemption records pulled every church-owned parcel in the county, 107 sites, with acreage, years held, and the owning entity on each row.
Measured the land the church is not using
Building footprints and imagery separated the sanctuary and parking from the open acreage, and the sites with three or more spare acres and a decade on the parcel stayed on the list.
Sorted by who can say yes
Cited web research classified each congregation as independent, district-owned, or diocese-controlled, and contact enrichment returned the pastor or board contact, in one case from a sermon posted online.
What came back
- 107 church sites in Pinellas County found from assessor use codes in the first pass, before a single call was made
- 31 with three or more acres of open land after building footprints and imagery measured what each church actually uses
- Denomination and decision maker on every row: independent congregations with a local board flagged first, district- and diocese-owned parcels sorted to the bottom, and a pastor's contact pulled from a posted sermon where the website had none
What they did next
Independent congregations get the first calls, the ones where a pastor and a board of elders can say yes without a diocese, and each call opens with the acreage the church is not using and the density Live Local allows there. The same church screen moves down the Gulf Coast one county at a time. Then comes the thesis the firm was built on, HAP-contract properties not yet in LIHTC, pulled from HUD's records onto the same map.
It pulled a pastor's number out of a sermon he posted online. Super awesome, honestly. That's a call I would never have found.
