Why does the legislature want to kill CRA’s
Way back in 1969, the Florida Legislature passed the Community Redevelopment Act. The new law was designed to prevent and eliminate slum and blighted areas by designating tax dollars from the neediest communities to go back into those areas. In 1993, Apopka created its own Community Redevelopment Agency for parts of South Apopka, but until recently it was mostly a project in mothballs.
The Florida Economic Consortium on Violence and Crime (FEC) sponsored a lunch meeting on Wednesday at the Fran Carlton Center in Apopka to discuss the role of CRA’s. It was attended by Apopka residents, community leaders, and elected officials but mostly by people associated with local CRA’s like Apopka and Eatonville. The content focused on how to run a successful CRA, but the biggest takeaway was the alarming fact that the Florida Legislature has a bill in play that would halt any new CRA’s and take a hard look at the existing ones.
House Speaker Richard Corcoran seems intent on ending CRA’s.
“We have a bill on CRAs out there that puts a moratorium on any new ones,” he said. “And then we will see what we can do with the existing ones. We’re going to fight on all fronts.”
Rod Love is the Chairman of the FEC. According to Love, his role is to advocate and execute economic development initiatives statewide that impact across all spectrums of the community, business development, job training, affordable housing, social justice, and education. More importantly and in concurrence with the message and mission of creating sustainable “urban” communities. He doesn’t want to see CRA’s taken down by Tallahassee.
“CRA’s can be an extremely effective tool in combating the carnage taking place in urban communities by constructing partnerships that have a scientific understanding and direct knowledge of “slum and blight”.
Greg Jackson is a local attorney and one of the three speakers at the event. He believes the scrutiny in the Legislature may be well deserved by some CRA’s.
“I believe that various CRA’s have lost focus on the true intent and purpose for their existence. They became excited to see funds coming into areas that historically were a drain on taxpayers, and they thought “hey we are on to something.” In that excitement several, not all, forgot that CRA’s were established to address the “slum” and “blight” that contributes greatly to poor living conditions, as well as poor health and sanitation. The problem for CRA’s is that many legislators did not forget why they were started and neither did members of the community.”
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