The city of Jacksonville and federal housing officials have partnered to support an affordable housing pilot project centered on manufactured homes.
On June 30, Mayor Donna Deegan and administrators from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ceremonially signed a memorandum of understanding to support the project on city-owned land in Northwest Jacksonville.
Under the MOU, the city will convey 17.5 acres of city-owned property, of which 5 acres will be used for the pilot program. On those 5 acres, a manufacturer that has yet to be named will install up to 10 homes per acre, which will be offered for sale.
Thomas Waters, director of the city’s Neighborhoods Department, said the acreage is east of Sibbald Road, north of Soutel Drive and west of the Sherwood Town Center.
According to details that emerged during a ceremonial signing event at City Hall, the homes in the pilot program will be 1,800 to 2,200 square feet and targeted to buyers at 80% to 120% of the area median income.
HUD, whose statistics the city uses in determining its affordable housing policies, lists the AMI at $108,000 across Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
Waters said the city is working on a land-use amendment and rezoning with plans to allow a nonprofit to develop the property.
The homes would not be income-restricted, officials said, and could be purchased as rental property. Buyers would purchase both the manufactured home and the lot on which it is placed.
“We want to make sure that people who love Jacksonville can afford to live here,” Deegan said during the signing event, adding that manufactured housing isn’t a “compromise” or a “last resort” but rather is a “smart, modern, dignified path to home ownership.”
Joseph DeFelice, HUD assistant deputy secretary for Field Policy and Management, said the federal department saw the pilot program as a “starter home initiative” that could be replicated across the nation to allow working families, veterans, seniors and others to purchase homes.
He called the program “a model for communities across Florida and across the nation.”
DeFelice took part in the signing along with Deegan and Paul Olin, acting general deputy assistant secretary of the Federal Housing Administration, which is part of HUD.
Olin, addressing what he called “outdated perceptions” of manufactured housing, said those homes are built to federal standards and that the industry had innovated and modernized in recent decades to produce homes that are “virtually indistinguishable” from single-family residences built on-site.
He said modern features include attached garages and intersecting rooflines.
Olin said manufactured housing appreciates similarly to the value of traditional single-family homes and makes up 10% of new housing starts in the U.S.
Waters said the nonprofit had identified a manufacturer for the pilot program from a list provided by HUD.
Under the MOU, the city agreed to provide a minimum of 5 acres of land available for donation; facilitate land-use, zoning, permitting and building inspection processes; identify public-private funding partners or in-kind support, where feasible; and collaborate with manufactured home producers and HUD.
HUD committed to identifying FHA-approved lenders that originate federally insured single-family loans in Northeast Florida, identifying producers of manufactured housing, assisting the city in implementation and serving as liaison between HUD offices and project partners.