Educating the public and earning its support is the key to boosting affordable housing in Jacksonville, panel members said at the Urban Land Institute North Florida’s 2025 Jacksonville Trends in Real Estate seminar Jan. 15.
About 290 people attended the event at the San Jose Country Club. City Affordable Housing Director Joshua Hicks moderated the “A Critical Conversation: Affordable Housing in 2025 & Beyond” breakout session panel.
Spending no more than 30% of a household’s income on housing is generally defined as affordable, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“NIMBYism is real,” city Planning Commission member Charles Garrison said.
“There are always one or two controversial applications that come before us, and that’s when you have the green shirts or red shirts or whatever color they choose. They talk about crime. They talk property values. They talk about everything that has nothing to do with it.
“It comes from a place of fear.”
Garrison, the land entitlement manager at Century Communities, oversees the land entitlement process from due diligence to construction readiness.
He said he was recently working on a town home project on the city’s Westside that will replace a junkyard.
“And the neighbors were like, ‘No, we want the junkyard,’” Garrison said. “‘I don’t want this development.’ That’s how bad it is. It’s mind-boggling. What gives someone the right to be the last to move into a community?”
For developments to move forward, The Vestcor Companies President Steve Moore said it is important to involve and educate the surrounding communities.
Vestor develops affordable and workforce apartments, including the Lofts properties Downtown.
“You have the community meetings,” he said.
“You bring facts with you. Here is the average income. Here are the rents. Without naming names, here are the last 40 move-ins. Where these individuals work.There is no logic. It’s just emotion. You bring facts with you. That’s always a good place to start.”
Commercial real estate, land use and zoning lawyer and lobbyist Cyndy Trimmer of the Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow firm said concerns about depreciating property values and the potential for crime are unfounded.
“Traffic is also one of the major concerns,” she said.
“It is very easy for me to get up and say there are no facts to support this. That’s a very different thing to come in with facts to prove it’s not accurate.
“There are people that understand and get it and there are those who absolutely don’t. A lot of it is working on educating. Touring a facility is Garrison said bringing in extra community improvements as part of a proposed development can also mitigate public opposition.
“Hey, you want improvements to this road? We’ll pay for it. You want parks? We’ll pay for it. It’s about being a part of the community and not forcing what you want onto the area,” he said. “It goes a long way.
“We have a real need, but we won’t get there without everybody’s engagement.”