Jacksonville is lining up a major new homeownership play for the urban core: a 124-unit community in Brentwood designed to stay attainable long after the first buyers move in. The project would bring a mix of townhomes, cottages and detached homes to a 10.6-acre site, giving the city something rarer than another apartment complex — a neighborhood built around permanently affordable ownership.
The Jacksonville Community Land Trust plans to develop Roosevelt Commons and break ground in 2027, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal. The project is planned for the Brentwood area, close to Jacksonville’s urban core, where new housing construction has increasingly become part of the city’s redevelopment strategy.
Roosevelt Commons Will Mix Three Housing Types
Rather than concentrating residents in one large building, Roosevelt Commons is expected to spread its 124 homes across several formats. The planned lineup of townhomes, cottages and detached houses could give income-qualified buyers more options while creating a more conventional neighborhood feel.
That design also fits the land trust’s broader mission. The Jacksonville Community Land Trust separates ownership of the land from ownership of the home, allowing buyers to purchase a house while the trust keeps the underlying property in community control.
The Land Stays In Trust While Buyers Build Equity
The model is meant to solve one of affordable housing’s most stubborn problems: homes can start out below market rate and then disappear from the affordable inventory when they are resold. Jacksonville Today reported that JCLT uses a renewable 99-year ground lease and resale rules intended to preserve affordability for future buyers.
JCLT says its homeownership opportunities are aimed at first-time buyers, working families and other households earning no more than 80% of the area median income. Applicants also need to qualify for a mortgage, but the organization says it helps prospective buyers prepare for homeownership if they are not yet ready to borrow, according to the Jacksonville Community Land Trust.
The Project Arrives During A Broader Housing Push
Roosevelt Commons is entering a Jacksonville housing market already crowded with efforts to add below-market homes. In February, Jacksonville Today reported that more than 4,000 affordable units were in development, while 3,576 below-market units had been completed since Mayor Donna Deegan took office in 2023.
The city has also launched a separate program intended to build 10 affordable single-family homes for very low-income households, with buyers earning at or below 50% of area median income, according to the City of Jacksonville. Roosevelt Commons would be considerably larger, but its land-trust structure gives it a different long-term goal: not simply adding units, but keeping homeownership within reach for multiple generations.
For now, Roosevelt Commons remains a planned development, with financing, approvals and construction details still ahead. If the timeline holds, the Brentwood project could become one of Jacksonville’s clearest tests of whether community-owned land can turn the urban core’s affordability ambitions into actual front doors.
