Jacksonville officials discuss nonprofit-backed program to rescue historic homes from 'demolition by neglect'

At a Jacksonville meeting on preservation strategy, city officials, members of the Historic Preservation Commission and preservation advocates discussed a task-force proposal to prevent “demolition by neglect” by using a combination of targeted foreclosures, nonprofit stewardship and a revolving fund to restore and resell historic single-family homes.

The task force, which ran about eight to nine months, produced five priority recommendations, William Off of the Historic Preservation Commission said: maintain a list of historic properties with unpaid fines or liens; create an objective scored matrix to identify properties at risk; convene stakeholders to develop a restoration plan; exercise the city’s authority to foreclose on selected properties when legally appropriate; and partner with a nonprofit to accept, hold and renovate properties the city does not want to own long term. “The city itself would, exercise, their authority, to foreclose on certain properties,” Off said.

Advocates framed preservation as economic…