Jacksonville City Councilman Matt Carlucci says he is livid after a city council committee voted to redirect $2.8 million he had secured for affordable housing construction toward a 180-unit apartment project instead, and he says nobody told him until two days after the vote. The money was part of a $4.9 million affordable housing trust fund allocation that survived a bruising budget fight just weeks earlier.
Carlucci told reporters the funds were originally intended to help build roughly 800 affordable homes, not apartments, and that the trust fund was meant to create ownership opportunities rather than rental units. As reported by Action News Jax, Carlucci said he was not notified of the redirection until two days after it happened, and that the trust fund was meant to create affordable homes rather than apartments.
The councilman also noted that many apartment projects take a couple of years to complete, and he said the Tori Meadows apartments effectively have two years to find money elsewhere before construction would need to begin, according to the same report.
How the Money Got Moved
According to the station's report, Councilman Will Lahnen introduced an amendment to transfer the $2.8 million from the trust fund to Tori Meadows Ltd. for the 180-unit apartment project. That amendment initially failed at a Monday rules committee meeting but was reintroduced by Councilman Rory Diamond at Tuesday's finance committee meeting, where it passed.
Lahnen defended the move, saying the funds remain allocated to affordable housing and that he supported using budgeted affordable-housing money for affordable housing. He added that the amendment simply offered a funding source for a bill that otherwise lacked one, per the same account.
The underlying bill, posted in the city's legislative records, authorizes a $2,800,000 development loan and permits the mayor or her designee to enter an economic development agreement with Tori Meadows, Ltd. to support roughly 180 affordable housing units, according to the bill text. The measure also waives requirements of the city's Public Investment Policy for the loan, and if the development agreement is not signed within 90 days, the bill's approvals are automatically revoked, though the mayor has discretion to extend that window by up to another 90 days.
A Budget Fight That Already Nearly Killed the Fund
The trust fund money at the center of the dispute had already survived one close call this fall. The Jacksonville City Council passed Mayor Donna Deegan's roughly $2 billion budget in an 18-1 vote on September 22, and that approved budget included an amendment restoring $4.9 million to the affordable housing trust fund, news4jax.com reported. That restoration followed a Finance Committee vote of 7-1 just two weeks earlier to strip the funding from the budget entirely.
Carlucci had pushed hard to save the allocation before that committee vote, telling colleagues, “What I'm asking for today is that we preserve the $4.9 million for affordable housing,” according to Jacksonville Today. Budget amendments ultimately allocated $2.1 million to a down-payment assistance program, $1.4 million to affordable housing construction, and $1.4 million to utility-connection assistance for low-income homeowners, according to the same outlet's reporting from that period.
Other Council Members Weigh In
Councilman Nick Howland said affordability and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars remain council priorities, calling the Tori Meadows project excellent while cautioning that public resources are limited and the most fiscally responsible funding source should be identified, per Action News Jax. Mayor Deegan's office said the Tori Meadows project has full support and will create 180 new housing units, and that the city needs more affordable housing to meet substantial demand. The mayor's office also said it would work with the full city council to restore the funding to its original intent, according to the station's reporting.
The amendment is set to go before the full city council next Tuesday, October 27.
The Scale of Jacksonville's Housing Gap
The dispute over a few million dollars sits against a much larger backdrop. Jacksonville needs another 47,000 rental units for residents earning 50% or less of the area median income, Jacksonville Today reported, citing figures presented during the September budget debate. The same reporting found that roughly 90,000 renters in Jacksonville spend more than 30% of their income on housing, while more than 42,000 spend over half.
City officials have pointed to progress alongside the gap: roughly 7,000 homes below market rate had been built or announced since mid-2023, including 6,000 units qualifying as affordable or low-income housing, according to earlier Jacksonville Today reporting from April. Even so, Deegan and the advocacy group ICARE said the city still faced a shortfall of 50,000 affordable housing units.
Not the City's First Such Loan
The Tori Meadows proposal follows a similar pattern to other recent city-backed housing deals. In March, the City Council voted 18-0 to authorize a $5 million, 20-year development loan for a Vestcor subsidiary's $56.5 million Campbell Cove mixed-income apartment project, expected to bring 240 apartments to 11000 Beach Blvd., per Jacksonville Today. A $2.8 million city loan was separately proposed for a Vestcor affordable apartment project, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal.
Whether the full council backs the Tori Meadows funding shift or redirects the money back toward Carlucci's original homeownership goals remains to be seen when the amendment comes up for a vote next Tuesday.
