PANAMA CITY — An agreement lasting 20 years was struck by city commissioners last week that will prevent the Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency from expiring in April of next year.
“That would have meant the portion of funds for downtown police would go away,” said William Whitson, CRA director. “That would mean no more grants, no funding for streetscape projects, loss of staff and all kind of things — not good things.”
The Downtown CRA was created in April of 1984. Commissioners then authorized Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which is a method to use hypothetical future gains in taxes to subsidize current improvements. TIF creates funding for public or private projects by borrowing against the future increase in these property-tax revenues.