JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville City Council Member Jimmy Peluso spearheaded a new initiative to combat “demolition by neglect” in the city’s historic districts.
Peluso hosted a meeting on Wednesday that brought together key stakeholders to revive a previous task force’s recommendations and discuss how to move forward.
“There’s a ton of property owners that have held onto a property for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and the property is just deteriorating to such a degree that it’s ready to fall apart,” Peluso said.
And Peluso said it is a significant issue across the city. While Jacksonville has several large historic properties sitting neglected, Peluso’s initiative will focus on what he said is a more manageable scale.
“Obviously, I want to see Laura Street Trio get done, but that’s a multi, multi, multimillion dollar deal,” Peluso said. “This is a way to make sure that communities and neighbors are able to help fix up their own neighborhoods with the help of the historic center. If we could do something that’s not going to cost $85 million to fix and it means the world to a neighborhood, let’s do it.”
The emphasis, according to Peluso, would be in historic neighborhoods. He said these areas have individual properties that need to be fixed up.
“We’re seeing it in some of our oldest neighborhoods,” Peluso said. “It becomes a public nuisance, becomes a public health issue, becomes a public safety issue.”
The initiative builds on recommendations from an original task force that operated from August 2025 to April 2025, which included:
- Creating and maintaining a list of properties with neglect-related fines
- Establishing criteria to identify properties at risk of demolition by neglect
- Regular meetings to discuss at-risk properties and develop action plans
- Expanding the city’s use of foreclosure authority
- Partnering with nonprofits to rehabilitate properties
Peluso envisions a sustainable solution through public-private partnerships. The Jacksonville History Center, represented at the meeting by Alan Bliss, had expressed interest in participating in the initiative.
“What we’re trying to do is make neighborhoods better,” Peluso said.
He outlined a revolving fund model where initial city seed funding would be combined with private sector donations to rehabilitate homes.
Peluso emphasized that while historic preservation is the primary goal, the initiative also supports housing accessibility and neighborhood improvement while bringing more families into these previously neglected homes.
“We fix up one home, it sells, a couple bucks are made, then we go to two homes... then we go to five. That’s how we really make this process work in the best way possible,” he said.
The initiative faces several hurdles, primarily securing funding and establishing an organizational structure. Peluso plans to meet with administration and code enforcement officials, consult with auditors about available funding, and present the initiative at Councilmember Matt Carlucci’s meeting on Friday.
“The real hurdle is funding,” Peluso acknowledged. “We need to make sure we have those dollars available for seed funding so that this new entity could take those properties and have some public dollars to use while leveraging private donations.”