State legislation that could end new projects by Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority – and hundreds of similar agencies statewide – alarms their supporters and sparks debate about Tallahassee’s control over redevelopment.
Bills to phase out what the state calls “community redevelopment agencies” are filed in both chambers of Florida’s Legislature.
The effect on redevelopment downtown and the Renew Arlington CRA that Jacksonville created in 2015 would be very unfortunate, said City Council President Lori Boyer.
Jacksonville could still pursue big goals, like redeveloping downtown’s Shipyards. But it would have to keep council support during budget votes year after year, and maintain a consensus together while council membership changed during projects that easily could last more than a decade.
The measures would impact a lot of projects for a lot of places.
State records label 222 boards across Florida as CRAs, from the DIA to the Keystone Heights Community Redevelopment Agency in rural southwestern Clay County.
The agencies are designed to boost development in decaying, blighted areas by setting aside any extra property tax revenue that comes from rising property values and earmarking that cash for reinvestment. (Tax rates, called millage, are the same inside or outside the CRA boundaries.)
Once CRA boundaries were set in the 1980s in downtown Jacksonville, for example, extra tax revenue collected from things like new office buildings or condo towers went into a separate account. That account was used to pay the expenses of downtown projects like replacing long sections of decaying downtown sewers, extending the Riverwalk and offering matching grants for business owners to improve building facades.
The House bill would prevent CRAs from spending that increment of extra tax money on new projects.