Urban Jacksonville

Recommendation #1: Preserve Existing Affordable Housing

In 2005 the State of Florida’s Affordable Housing Study Commission recommended preserving existing affordable housing as it’s primary objective. Any city in Florida studying affordable housing would, and should, come to the conclusion that preserving existing affordable housing stock would be a good first move.

It’s also a good place to kick off my continued evaluation of the Jacksonville Affordable and Workforce Housing Taskforce. I’ll dice the report into tasty bite-size chunks with none of the stuff you don’t need.

In it’s first recommendation the taskforce identifies five reasons why the current stock of affordable housing is dwindling and points out 4 ways to stop the bleeding.

Our Current Stock

The CityÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s (entire) housing stock is aging
Thousands of market rate rental units have been converted into condominiums
The lost multifamily units (above) have not been replaced by new affordable housing
Units built in exchange for property owner commitments to maintain affordability are near the end of mandated affordable compliance periods
Federal funding for programs that preserve affordability are decreasing

So why is it so important to preserve existing affordable housing?

The preservation of existing multifamily units is less expensive and more efficient than new construction. The MacArthur Foundation has estimated that it costs 50% to 75% less to preserve an affordable unit than to build a new one.

How do we stop the bleeding?

Listen to the state report and bust our ass to preserve existing affordable housing
Study public records to determine what income levels are being served by existing units and when the mandatory affordability compliance periods end.
Incentives for developers to preserve affordable units approach the end of their compliance periods.
Offer low-interest loans to improve and maintain existing affordable housing units in Jacksonville.

Preservation seems to be a very popular theme in affordable housing right now. After my research I feel this is an excellent recommendation to kick of the rest of the report. The City of San Diego lists affordable housing goals on the city’s website. Some searching on the City of Jacksonville website yielded the Jacksonville Housing Commision page which does talk about affordable housing initiatives.

The difference in our two cities is San Diego also has a page of accomplishments. Talk about accountability. I didn’t see any measurable goals listed in Jacksonville’s affordable housing taskforce report. Maybe we should create a taskforce to create measurable goals.

tags: jacksonville, affordable+housing, workforce+housing

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 9:24 am and is filed under Activism, Affordable Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

http://jaxopolitan.blogspot.com Jaxopolitan

I heard about a year ago that Duval County was #7 in the nation for foreclosure. I’m not sure how that number has changed, but that was back when the market was still pretty hot.

Who are the people who can afford places like Metropolitan lofts, at $800/month for a studio?

It’d be nice to have affordable housing that’s not scary cracked-out, like the Ashley St Apts used to be. I still haven’t been by since the renovation.

What we need are more hookers, less violent crime.
vicupstate

Excellent piece Joey. Thanks for getting attention on this subject. I especially liked your comment about ACCOMPLISHMENTS. The last thing we need is another study gathering dust.

The old Ashley St. Apts building is looking pretty good. The view from the 17th floor is incredible. They have sold 70 of the 200 units so far, with little advertising . That is about to change though, so if you know someone interested, they need to go by there soon.
http://www.urbanjacksonville.info Joey Marchy

In 2006 Florida is #3 in forclosures:

Florida foreclosures third highest in nation
Uturn

The sad thing is, while there is probably plenty of “keeping up with the Joneses” involved, for the most part, it’s probably people trying their best to have as nice a home as possible for their families, keeping their kids in “better” schools, etc. I think the reason we had the recent housing boom is more because of all the new and creative financing strategies on the market rather than people being more financially stable. It’s very sad to think of people losing their homes. I know it happens many times because people are deliberately living beyond their means – but, as I said, a lot of happens to good people just trying to provide a better life for their family.
http://www.downtownparks.com Downtownparks

We also have a lot of speculative real estate.
Don Downing

I’ve followed affordable housing discussions in Maryland for a number of years. I fully agree that the best shot at keeping affordable housing for workforce or lower income people is to preserve what we have. We just can’t build enough at affordable levels to meet the overwhelming needs.

Does Jacksonville have viable public and non-profit organizations seeking to buy, renovate, and manage existing multifamily units?

Don Downing – moving to Springfield soon
[urban planner and community advocate]
http://www.urbanjacksonville.info Joey Marchy

Don, I’m not sure. That would be a good question to ask Elaine Brown (ElaineB@coj.net). She was tapped by the city to create the report. I emailed her your question, you may want to ask her to. I’ll let you know what I hear from her. Welcome to Springfield and thanks for chiming in.

Affordable Housing Taskforce Part 2

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