Gulliford wants action on blighted homes

[mtraininjax]

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=546681

Jacksonville has lots of empty houses. And lots of people who need housing.
The challenge is to bring the two together.

Calling it the "most important issue in the community right now," City Council member Bill Gulliford led a discussion Tuesday on how the city might take over blighted houses and support affordable housing in Jacksonville's weaker neighborhoods.

Drive through several Jacksonville neighborhoods and blight can be easily seen. In October, blight got a map.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund paid for a block-by-block analysis of Jacksonville's housing markets. Weaker, blighted areas showed up red.

Other cities have used similar studies to target weak neighborhoods for proactive code enforcement and reinvestment. Now Gulliford wants the study to help Jacksonville do the same.

Joining him in the conversation were council members Anna Lopez Brosche and Garrett Dennis and mayor's office representative Ali Korman Shelton.

There wasn't a proposal on the table. But Gulliford asked the group to think about what kind of entity could best be used to "receive and dispose of" abandoned blighted properties.

How would it function? How could we encourage it? And, how would it become a conduit for repurposing property, he asked.

Gulliford has been a longtime proponent of a land bank — a program in which a city takes title to abandoned homes and finds developers to revitalize them.

But where land banks have succeeded, in Milwaukee for example, states heavily supported them. In Florida, there's no such funding.

"It's going to take a significant amount of money," Gulliford said. And, whoever takes ownership will have to take over maintenance while wading through Florida's three-year foreclosure process.

Another question is whether the program would be run by the city housing department, an independent authority or a nonprofit.

If through a nonprofit, the city would still need to condemn the property, creating an issue as to how it could then be transferred to the nonprofit.

If through the city's own housing department, it would be harder to depoliticize the process.

Baltimore, for example, used its housing department to reclaim blighted neighborhoods. But officials there admitted a new mayor could send that program down a different track.

Whatever method is used, Gulliford hopes to pair it with an affordable housing-community redevelopment initiative.

He predicted it would take a long-term monumental effort. Without it though, parts of the city would deteriorate into places no one wants to drive through.

"There's no physical barrier between bad neighborhoods and good neighborhoods," Gulliford said. "Bad people in bad neighborhoods can easily move criminal activity into a good neighborhood. ... And, Riverside is awful doggone close to Durkeeville."

The Dupont Study discussed above can be found here: http://www.dupontfund.org/wp-content/uploads/duPont-MVA.pdf

[Tacachale]

This sounds like a good idea.

[strider]

Interesting report. However, I suspect there is something else to this.  The City has in the past year made it easier to condemn and tear down these houses.  While it is great to talk about passing these houses on, I have heard too many times from the various department heads that would be involved in this that Jacksonville is not in the real estate market and so they can only condemn and demolish, not take and fix.  Even if they actually do it some day, watching who gets what will tell a very interesting story. Meanwhile, it is my understanding the something at the Florida State level prevents Land Banking from happening.

[mbwright]

Hard to believe this, since there has been such a push for sneaky Emergency Demo's, even when PSOS and others are willing to mothball, and even stabilize historic homes. 

[jph]

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=546681

"There's no physical barrier between bad neighborhoods and good neighborhoods," Gulliford said. "Bad people in bad neighborhoods can easily move criminal activity into a good neighborhood. ... And, Riverside is awful doggone close to Durkeeville."

The Dupont Study discussed above can be found here: http://www.dupontfund.org/wp-content/uploads/duPont-MVA.pdf

What a dogwhistle in this quote. Careful, good people of Riverside. The bad people of Durkeeville are coming for you unless we start tearing down their houses.

[thelakelander]

In reality, Durkeeville should be one of the easiest Northside neighborhoods to revitalize. Its housing stock is pretty impressive, it's close to downtown and it's anchored by UF Health Jax, EWC and one of the best public high schools in the country.

[Bill Hoff]

I attended the Block by Block study presentation a couple months ago. Guests also had the opportunity to participate in a variety of workshops, facilitated by experts on this issue.

I sat in with the former Code Enforcement chief of Balitmore, who described how they addressed their vacant home problem. It was fantastic. Without going into detail, this was the result of Baltimore's work: Vacants to Value

http://www.vacantstovalue.org/