Jacksonville leaders call meeting to address free affordable housing properties turn profits

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The City of Jacksonville is holding a special meeting sparked by an Action News Jax investigation.

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We told you last week that Jacksonville gave away property to people who said they would build affordable housing but failed to ensure the new owners followed through.

The Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee is meeting later this morning and former Council President Ron Salem is leading the charge.

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The Action News Jax investigation spurred Salem to push the Deegan Administration for answers. He calls for accountability after seeing how much money the city has lost and how many affordable homes should have been created but weren’t.

An Inspector General report found that 95% of people who got free property from the city in 2019 failed to deliver what they promised: below-market-rate homes.

Starting in 2019, state law required the city to sell or donate certain surplus properties to create affordable housing. The people who signed up could get up to 5 properties for free and had 2 years to get them on the market at below-market rates.

The city’s Deputy Inspector General’s Office followed up on the parcels from 2019, and it found a staggering failure of accountability. In 2019, the city gave away 174 parcels of land to 62 people, and 59 violated the deed agreement.

Read: INVESTIGATES: Broken promise in Jacksonville affordable housing as free property turned profits

Now, Salem is asking the Deegan Administration to show up for his finance committee meeting this morning.

“This goes back beyond the administration just to be fair. I want to understand how it happened. What are we doing to prevent this from happening again in the future? It’s great to set up a process, but we’ve got to follow up on the process,” Salem said.

The city said it has taken actions to address all the recommendations the Inspector General’s report made.

The finance committee meeting is expected to start at 9 a.m. this morning.

Read: INVESTIGATES: Broken promise properties; Jacksonville councilman calls for accountability

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