The Jacksonville City Council got their first look at the Jacksonville Community Revitalization report compiled by members of the city and the Illinois Housing Development Authority last Monday night
Christopher Walton of IDHA walked the city council through information pulled from the Community Needs Assessment Survey that the city distributed earlier this year. The final analysis compared Jacksonville to Edwardsville, Macomb, Ottawa, and Quincy to put the study into perspective compared to other municipalities of similar size.
Walton says that the city would qualify for many of IDHA’s grants and tax credit programs to help develop new housing opportunities in the city: “What I really want to touch on is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit known as LIHTC. This plan that was put together, you can used that for a 9% LIHTC application that helps developers have tax credits to be able to build affordable housing in the City of Jacksonville and bring more housing here.”
Directly after Walton’s presentation to the City Council last Monday night, Eric Hanson, legal counsel to the Morgan County Housing Authority, presented a site plan for two potential new developments of low-income housing along North Main Street.
Walton says they would likely use some of IDHA’s tax credit programs to get the developments built: “The Housing Authority’s not-for-profit entity that is its development arm has submitted a preliminary application to IDHA. IDHA just talked about one of the action items [in the report] is working closely with the Housing Development Authority seeking low-income housing tax credits, which would allow those types of housing to be developed. What we have handed out here in this proposal is very briefly kind of a site plan as well as some proposed elevations. Obviously, this is very, very preliminary, but where this is located is North Main Street that’s next to Downtown Commons. This is on the west side of the road heading north. What we would be proposing is there is some open space behind Downtown Commons that the Housing Authority already owns, there would be town homes there.”
The new homes would run from West Dunlap up to West Independence on North Main. There would also be a second development under the grant application that would have more town homes running along West Dunlap Avenue. The design would keep with similar town home designs along North Main Street.
The city is expected to act on adopting the Community Revitalization Plan at their next monthly meeting on November 28th. The Morgan County Housing Authority says it is still in preliminary stages of getting the idea of Downtown Villas off the ground with their tax credit application and will be returning to the city council once they have received more information on their application.