605 west beaver

LaVilla, future site of affordable housing?

Recommendation #2: Make Affordable Housing a Priority in the Disposition of City-Owned Land

This recommendation requires yet another task force to develop an inventory of City-owned land which may be appropriate for affordable housing. In addition the new task force must finalize criteria to foster affordable housing development. Apparently the city has been trying to develop this list for some time.

Luckily the State (Florida House of Representatives Bill – HB 1363) requires tangible results from this task force by July 2007. Task force members from Housing & Neighborhoods, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, JEDC and the City’s Real Estate Division will have to kick it into high gear to finalize this list by Summer.

Recommendation #2 also “suggests” that:

land determined to be appropriate for the construction of affordable or workforce housing should be given top priority for disposition to qualified affordable housing developers (prior to the City declaring such land as “surplus”) through a competitive Request for Proposals process.

Unfortunately this is only a suggestion. These recommendations are just that, recommendations. Without any defined goals they will remain suggestions. Fortunately the next sentence in the recommendation requests that the city target LaVilla, Brooklyn and East Jacksonville as locations for affordable housing developments.

LaVilla and Brooklyn are both in desperate need of any type of housing. East Jacksonville also known as Oakland or that “ghetto neighborhood North of Alltel” has a pretty good housing base, but most of it is dilapidated and in need of life.

If the city did inject additional residents into East Jacksonville by creating new affordable housing units it could very well be the next “it” neighborhood. Gridded streets, proximity to the sporting complex, Downtown, the river and the new residential and retail developments at The Shipyards could make this area an awesome alternative to the currently overpriced housing market that is Springfield.

Also in this recommendation the task force suggests that areas surrounding City-owned land should be evaluated to see if the exchange of land with surrounding property owners would benefit the City’s overall goal to develop infill, affordable housing. It cites the following example as a successful case study:

In 2006, Riverside Avondale Development Organization (“RADO”), a community-based nonprofit entity devoted to the development of affordable housing in Jacksonville, obtained land in North Riverside from the City of Jacksonville for the development of affordable housing. The land was previously used by the City’s Parks and Recreation Department for storage. Twelve single family homes will be developed on the three-acre site, priced at approximately $145,000 each. This is a prime example of how City-owned land that is appropriate for the development of affordable housing was put to productive use.

Finally the task force asked the city to review all existing DRIs within Duval County to see if they can fit some affordable housing units into the developments. DRI stands for Development of Regional impact. Basically it’s a big-ass development like Nocatee or Oakleaf. These housing developments are so large that they have an “impact on the region” and must be approved before the project can go forward. This part of the recommendation could act as an audit to make sure that developers who said they would include affordable units in their plans actually follow through with those promises.

At this time I would like to mention that I have contacted Elaine Brown three times to request information on my affordable and workforce housing series. I have not heard back from her. Does anyone know her or have any influence with her? I think her feedback could be a valuable contribution to this series.

Related Links:
411 on DRI’s from the Jacksonville Business Journal
Other posts in the Jacksonville affordable housing taskforce series

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 8:58 am and is filed under Activism, Affordable Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.