by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
It’s well known that Jacksonville’s path to a revitalized downtown has so far been paved with incentives. Tax breaks have lured restaurants, hotels, residential buildings and a Fortune 500 company to build north of the St. Johns River.
Less publicized has been the City’s use of property tax breaks to preserve the historical look and feel of the neighborhoods surrounding downtown. In one afternoon, the City Council’s Finance Committee approved tax exemptions worth about $900,000 to homeowners in historical neighborhoods such as Springfield, Avondale and Riverside.
The committee debated the merits of these breaks during its Tuesday morning meeting. Some Council members questioned the logic of partially exempting valuable residential property from the City’s tax rolls. Though admittedly costly, the tax breaks encourage homeowners to preserve their historical structures, other Council members argued, rather than saving money by bulldozing them and building new homes. The exemptions, 12 of them worth an estimated $900,573 over 10 years, passed the committee unanimously. They will appear before the Council for a final vote.
“It would be a lot cheaper for these developers to just tear these houses down and build new ones,” Finance Chair Warren Alvarez said Wednesday. “The tax exemptions give them an incentive to redevelop within the historical standards of the neighborhood.”
Alvarez’ comments echoed the opinion of by Real Estate Chief Patricia Brown.
“The impact of these incentives is bigger than just the dollar amount,” she told the Finance Committee. “They keep people from just coming in and razing these homes. It’s a lot easier for them to just come in and bulldoze them.”
By the time they reach the Council for approval, Alvarez said the incentives have already passed three stages of review. First they must receive Planning Department approval, then certification from a Historic Preservation Board is required before the exemption request reaches the Finance Committee. Because the incentive requests have already been certified within State and City guidelines, Alvarez said his committee rarely votes them down.
Only the rehabilitation costs are exempted, Alvarez said, noting the property owners continue to pay school taxes among others.
Council member Michael Corrigan sponsored half of the exemption requests approved Tuesday. During committee discussion on the breaks, Corrigan said the developers agree to follow strict guidelines in redeveloping their buildings.
“They lose the ability to do what they want to with their property,” said Corrigan. “That’s the trade–off.”
Restored historical properties increase the assessed value of entire neighborhoods, Corrigan said. That gives the City a chance to recoup lost property taxes.
“You give a tax break on one property, but it lifts the value of surrounding properties,” he said.
Finance Committee member Lake Ray acknowledged the exemptions’ value as incentives, but he said he was concerned they could be abused.
During the meeting, Corrigan said the exemptions had been abused at times, but said historical redevelopment was still worth encouraging.
“Are there times when people get these exemptions when they don’t deserve them? Sure there are,” he said.
However, Corrigan said the incentives still add value to downtown’s surrounding neighborhoods.