Council Approves Controversial HUD Complex
Residents Plead Council To Vote No
The majority of the citizens who wanted to speak before the City Council Tuesday night wanted to talk about one thing: a public housing project going up in their neighborhood.
Speaker after speaker stood up to ask the Jacksonville City Council members to stop a proposed 336 unit public housing complex from going up in their Argyle Forest neighborhood.
The Jacksonville Housing Authority picked the lot off Blanding Boulevard because a federal court has ordered the city to put more public housing units in white neighborhoods.
The company, Vestcor, which owns several of these complexes, would build one of the new complexes. But residents from the neighborhood had several reasons why the apartments should not be built there, and some used pretty strong words to convey their feelings.
"I don't want to live around those people. Whether you like the fact that I want to live around them or not, nobody wants to live around a project," resident Philip Sheridan (pictured, left) said. "We all know what they're like. Watch any documentary, it's trash. Whether you like it or not, you can't sugarcoat it."
But one resident upped the ante when he disclosed that sex offenders might be living next door. He printed out sheets showing that three sex offenders who had lived or were currently living in public housing owned by Vestcor.
"I don't think this is a scare tactic. I think it's the fact that Vestcor has not been doing its research," Argyle Forest resident Bill Lewis (pictured, right) said. "I don't know who's been doing their background checks, but it's a very easy check anybody can pull up on the Internet."
Council members took all the reasons into consideration, but in the end their hands were tied. If they voted against the plan then they would be violating federal law, and so it passed unanimously.
Council members would've violated fair housing laws if they voted no. The reason is because the property is already zoned to have an apartment complex there.
If council members voted no they would've violated fair housing laws because the property is already zoned to have an apartment complex there. By voting no they basically would've been denying it because of the public housing tenants that is against the law.
Copyright 2003 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Jacksonville Housing Authority picked the lot off Blanding Boulevard because a federal court has ordered the city to put more public housing units in white neighborhoods.
The company, Vestcor, which owns several of these complexes, would build one of the new complexes. But residents from the neighborhood had several reasons why the apartments should not be built there, and some used pretty strong words to convey their feelings.
"I don't want to live around those people. Whether you like the fact that I want to live around them or not, nobody wants to live around a project," resident Philip Sheridan (pictured, left) said. "We all know what they're like. Watch any documentary, it's trash. Whether you like it or not, you can't sugarcoat it."
But one resident upped the ante when he disclosed that sex offenders might be living next door. He printed out sheets showing that three sex offenders who had lived or were currently living in public housing owned by Vestcor.
"I don't think this is a scare tactic. I think it's the fact that Vestcor has not been doing its research," Argyle Forest resident Bill Lewis (pictured, right) said. "I don't know who's been doing their background checks, but it's a very easy check anybody can pull up on the Internet."
Council members took all the reasons into consideration, but in the end their hands were tied. If they voted against the plan then they would be violating federal law, and so it passed unanimously.
Council members would've violated fair housing laws if they voted no. The reason is because the property is already zoned to have an apartment complex there.
If council members voted no they would've violated fair housing laws because the property is already zoned to have an apartment complex there. By voting no they basically would've been denying it because of the public housing tenants that is against the law.
Copyright 2003 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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