DELTONA — A mishmash of vacancies and re-purposed small businesses adjoin the city’s only motel, the former Deltona Inn, along a boulevard that City Commissioner Heidi Herzberg calls “sad.”
Herzberg, who represents the city’s southwest side, and her fellow commissioners unanimously passed a resolution declaring Deltona Boulevard blighted and asking the Volusia County Council to approve a Community Redevelopment Area, or CRA. The plan is to redirect property-tax revenue back into the area to help make the area attractive to developers.
What was approved Monday without any public comment and little City Commission discussion is actually a revival of the same approach taken in 2012. That time, though, the County Council never acted on Deltona’s request for a CRA in the area because the county was re-evaluating its own stance on how well CRAs have worked and how much the county should sacrifice in revenue.