By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
A new housing study could help Jacksonville turn around blighted neighborhoods by showing investors and policymakers where the opportunities lie.
Jacksonville’s Block by Block market value analysis was unveiled last month by The Reinvestment Fund, a national nonprofit that finances neighborhood revitalizations. The group has performed such analyses for 21 U.S. cities.
For the study, TRF collected housing data and evaluated block-by-block the health and stability of each of Duval County’s housing markets.
The results appear in the form of a color-coded map, spanning a spectrum from red to blue.
“Healthy” blue neighborhoods have high sale prices, fewer foreclosures, lower vacancies and high owner-occupancy rates.
“Unhealthy” red neighborhoods have low sales prices, more rentals and higher vacancies.
Predictably Jacksonville’s bluest neighborhoods fall at the Beaches and along the river. Red covers Northwest Jacksonville.
But even Jacksonville’s distressed areas show pockets of healthy neighborhoods — like Springfield, which comes in at yellow and orange. That’s an opportunity.
The purpose is not to label neighborhoods as “good” or “bad,” said TRF President Ira Goldstein, but to understand markets and make policy and investment decisions that are based on data.
Distressed neighborhoods, he said, can be transformed by building from strengths — a healthy proximate neighborhood, a major institution, a transportation hub, environmental amenities. Target that spot for re-development.
A guiding principle of TRF is that public subsidy is scarce and it alone cannot create a market. Public money can best be used to leverage, or clear a path, for private investment.
TRF performed its first housing market study in 2001 for Philadelphia, where $295 million had been set aside for revitalization. It’s not as much as it sounds, Goldstein said.
“In a place the size of Philadelphia, you could spend $295 million and only see the receipts — you’d have no impact if you didn’t do it smartly,” he said.
Jacksonville’s Market Value Analysis was commissioned by the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund.