EDGEWATER — Several years of planning will culminate next week when city leaders make their case to the Volusia County Council for the city’s first Community Redevelopment Area, a proposal that will look to rehabilitate a stretch of U.S. 1 and create a new downtown.
City officials had originally pitched a 40-year CRA, in which property tax revenues are redirected to improve blighted areas. However, city officials will ask the County Council instead to approve a 20-year plan, Samantha Bishop, Edgewater’s economic development coordinator, said Thursday. That’s because city leaders were told by county officials that a 20-year proposal was likely the limit that the County Council would accept, Bishop said.
The County Council voted 6-1 in June to accept Orange City’s CRA plan that lasts 20 years, with County Chair Jason Davis voting against.
