Earlier this month, Action News Jax reported how the city has been giving away property to people who said they would build affordable housing but never made sure the owners followed through.
On Tuesday, Action News Jax Investigator Emily Turner reported that the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee called the chief of affordable housing and community development to the floor for accountability.
He answered 2 big questions: What’s being done to make it right, and what’s being done to ensure it doesn’t happen again?
In 2019, the city gave away 174 parcels of land to people with the understanding they would put affordable housing on those plots within 2 years, but the Office of Inspector General found that 59 of 62 people who got those free properties failed to do that.
Now, the effort is underway to make it right. On Tuesday, the director of housing admitted the city’s first attempt at donating surplus property was a failure it’s working to rectify.
“Original legislation [was] not stringent enough,” Travis Jeffery, the Jacksonville chief of housing, said.
Jeffry answered some tough questions from the finance committee about how badly the program dropped the ball and what’s being done to recoup those losses. He said the city now makes recipients sign new, stronger donation agreements, it has staff dedicated to the program and a more robust vetting process.
But, the first push among committee members is clawing back the donated properties from the new owners who have failed to provide the promised housing.
“One family has 30 properties,” Councilman Rory Diamond stated.
Of the properties that violated the agreement, Jeffrey said 47 have now complied, 7 were returned 5 are being sued for return and 64 requests for return have been mailed. The rest are asking for an extension or have gotten one.
“We’ve touched about half of them already of the 174 that were in the 2019 donation agreement, and we’ve resolved about half of them. We still have the other half to resolve,” Jeffery explained.
The city has also allowed some recipients to buy the property for its assessed value. From the 15 property owners who opted for that, the city has recouped $270,000.
But, the legal battle to get the bad actors’ properties back is a costly one. Jeffrey said it costs about $10,000 to $12,000 to have property returned that’s worth less than half that.
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