How to get a house for cheap(er). A guide to assistance programs.

Tuesday night Jill, Sabrina and I kicked off Inertia's free school with a class about homebuyer assistance programs available to median income residents in Duval County. There were about 7 people in attendance, including two couples who are looking at homes. It was nice to see the information we provide in action--those two couples will probably end up getting some help from one program or another.

There's a lot of help out there for first time buyers who make under $40K. Check out this wizard on the Florida Housing Finance Corporation website. It also links to a calculator from Fannie Mae that tells you how much house you can afford.

Unfortunately, as I've long been suspecting, my Americorps stipend will not get me a house in this neighborhood anytime soon. Unless, that is, these guys are right about the market. Even with my very low existing debt, the Fannie Mae calculator says I can only afford a $76,000 home, and in Riverside/Avondale that means I can, um, leave.

Now, if I were more handy, and could get RADO's prices on neglected houses to rehab into lovely dwellings, like my favorite of our properties on Ralph Street, then I might be in business...and in my neighborhood. I think they acquired this property for under $90K.













There she is! 703 Ralph Street (still undergoing cosmetic surgery). Ya wanna house? This is your house. Soon to have new, Florida Friendly landscaping courtesy of the Native Plant Society.

Until then I'll hum my favorite Airport Factory song, the one that references the 1661 Riverside development.

Affordable teacher housing. An example from New York.

Thankfully this is not as pressing an issue in Jacksonville as it is in some other cities. Nevertheless it warrants some thought. The problem is that escalating home prices push out essential service workers such as public school teachers, nurses and fire fighters. This is being tackled in various ways.

New York City, for example, is using funds from the teachers' pension fund to build affordable housing for its teachers.




Board member Tom Merten sends this article from USA Today.





Cheaper NYC teachers' housing could be model.

I was looking at the Fair Housing Act recently (to win an argument about institutional racism with a friend...long story), and this article/concept makes me wonder: how does this project get around non-discriminatory regulations since they're building homes strictly for teachers? Technically this is discriminatory, although I don't doubt it's quite positive.

Does it have something to do with the financing (using the pension fund)?

Right outside my RADO window sits a property we all daydream about, the old John Gorrie high school, current home of the Teacher Supply Depot. Perhaps, someday, in the not-too-distant future, we could house some Duval County teachers in lovely, affordable lofts...instead of manilla folders, those big fat crayons, and some old lady's musical instruments.















See? That huge yellow-brick opportunity out there? I look at it every day and wonder.

What do you think John Gorrie should be?

Comprehensive Planning

I've always loved legos, but I learned about a new use for the colorful plastic blocks last week that makes me like them even more: cooperative city planning.

I attended the Urban Land Institute's breakfast session at the Main Library downtown, which was co-sponsored by Foley and Lardner (a big environmental law firm). Along with some useful updates on growth management legislation, city plans, and some vivid expressions of terror about the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment petition, there was a fascinating presentation about ULI's Reality Check process for community visioning, recently completed in the Tampa Bay area.














Imagine a table-sized map of Duval County and the Jacksonville Metropolitan Area (which includes all areas from which commuters drive TO the city, daily). Now, imagine you and ten other citizens from all walks of life are given blocks representing the total number of people and jobs expected to move into this geographic area by 2050 (yellow for folks, red for jobs), as well as ribbons for proposing roads and new transit lines. As a group you decide on a list of operating guidelines (such as a focus on environmental integrity, transit-oriented development, town centers, and economic growth), and then place the population and jobs on the map.

What you get is a land-use plan, by the people, for the people, and you might be surprised what the folks in the area surrounding Tampa Bay came up with. Almost all the tables had essentially the same guiding principles (all of them prioritized environmental sustainability and increased mass- and multi-modal transit), and most of them decided it would be best to build more densely, and in conglomerations of residences and employment spaces (i.e. walkable town centers instead of sprawl).

Everyone in the room seemed to understand that this sort of process could be a viable alternative to the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment. Even I (seemingly the lone environmentalist, and one of few nonprofit folks) could see the benefit of this sort of alternative, although I wholeheartedly support *Hometown Democracy.

I would love to see something like Reality Check happen in Jacksonville. The one big problem I see with the FLHD amendment is that it might freeze in place the useless current Comp Plan, and make it harder for a process like Reality Check to have an impact.

Here's an article about the session in the Daily Record.

*My opinions don't necessarily match or reflect those of RADO. But you guys knew that, right?