Jacksonville Officials Make Plans for Affordable Housing in Florida

While borrowers have been applying for Orlando mortgages in great number this year, the same can’t be said for Jacksonville home loans.

With prices out of the reach of many workers, city officials today took what they believe will be the first step toward providing more options for workforce housing in the community.

Members of the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force agreed to draft legislation for a one-stop shop for affordable housing development that will be like a new division in the Housing and Neighborhoods Department.

“It is a problem that’s going to continue, it’s not going to go away,” said Councilwoman and task force chair Elaine Brown of Jacksonville’s growing need for workforce housing in order to increase Florida mortgage demand in the region. “Let’s go ahead and get aggressive about this.”

The city has spent millions of dollars over the last few years addressing the city’s affordable housing needs, but recent escalating housing prices in Florida have unveiled a new and emerging problem: workforce housing.

Workforce housing is defined as those professionals who earn 80-140 percent of the area median income in Jacksonville, or those who earn more than those with a low-enough income typically thought to benefit from affordable housing, teachers, police officers, nurses and other low-paid professionals.

Although the issue is not as severe in the Jacksonville housing market as it is in other major Florida cities, city officials wanted to address it before it got worse by appointing an affordable housing committee.

After six months of research and debate the committee developed a Draft Report to the Affordable Housing Task Force that outlined some of the needs for Jacksonville, along with recommendations to address them and today outlined a timeline to accomplish some of their goals.

Council member Michael Corrigan said he thought many of the other recommendations will fall into place with the creation of the new division. From there, home purchase loan activity in the city will pick up as financing becomes easier.

“It shows the community and everybody in the industry that we’re moving forward with this,” Corrigan said.

The task force intends to have that legislation drafted by the end of the year. Task force members also agreed to have an inventory list of city-owned property that could be used for affordable and workforce housing ready for a council vote by June.

“Anything we can do to keep costs down, that’s the role the city is going to play,” Brown said, but, “it’s dependent on all of us working together.”