The COJ hired consultant teams to prepare a "Finding of Necessity" to present to the City Council and later to the State, hopefully for funding to revitalize some or Arlington. In the "FoN", it was necessary to find that parts of Arlington had blight and/or slum. Wish I could attach the PDF file and report. The FoN is complete. Some truly ugly photos inside it. Here's an excerpt from the document or report.
QuoteEXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City of Jacksonville, as part of its Renew Jacksonville campaign, desires to create a Community RedevelopmentArea and Master Plan for three major commercial corridors University Boulevard, Merrill and Arlington Roads, within the Arlington community. The overall area has been subject to several recent redevelopment planning efforts including:
Arlington Town Center Vision Plan —2005
Old Arlington Neighborhood Action Plan —2007
GreaterArlington/Beaches Vision Plan —2010,
Ongoing Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA), Jacksonville
Transportation Authority and Florida Department of Transportation studies,
The area has been designated an Urban Priority Area in the City's 2030 Comprehensive Plan which designates areas in need of redevelopment.
Per Florida Statute, Chapter 163, Part Ill, before the City can create a Community Redevelopment Area, Community Redevelopment Plan and Redevelopment Trust Fund; it must first determine that the proposed Redevelopment Area (RDA) shows evidence of slum or blight as defined by the Statute. The means of providing such evidence is Finding of Necessity (FoN) Report. The Finding of Necessity is the first of several steps that must be undertaken before the proposed RDA as approved as a Community Redevelopment Area.
Chapter 163, Part Ill, lists a number of criteria that must be met in order for an area to be designated as "Slum or Blighted". To be defined as "Slum" an area needs to meet one or more of the three definitions of Slum; or meet two or more of the fourteen (14) conditions of "Blight".
The Statute also states that in the case that all taxing districts that are subject to the Statute are in agreement that the area is blighted, only one blight criteria needs to be met. The fact that the City of Jacksonville is a consolidated City/County and that it is the only Taxing Authority subject to this effort; then only one condition of blight needs to be defined. That said, this Finding of Necessity Report while not finding "Slum" conditions, has identified a minimum of six (6) of the 14 conditions necessity to define the proposed RDA as "Blighted".
The six (6) conditions of blight are:
1) Predominance of defective or inadequate street layout, parking facilities, roadways, bridges, or public transportation facilities. (Section 163.340 [8] a., ES.)
2) Faulty lot layout in relationship to size, adequacy, accessibility, or usefulness. (Section 163.340 [8] c, ES.)
3) Unsanitary or unsafe conditions. (Section 163.340 [8] d, ES.)
4) Deterioration of site or other improvements. (Section 163.340 [8] e, ES.)
5) Inadequate or outdated building patterns (Section 163.340 [8] f, ES.)
6) Incidents of Crime. (Section 163.340 [8] j, ES.)