Findlay committee approves drafting to amend pre‑1994 CRA, add sunset and craft post‑1994 policy

Findlay City’s Strategic Planning Committee voted June 17 to direct the administration and the city attorney to draft legislation updating the city’s existing Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) rules: amend CRA No. 1 to reflect current city boundaries, add a sunset provision, and prepare a new post‑1994 CRA policy for future use.

The action followed a presentation from Attorney Sean Burn, who briefed the committee on legal differences between “pre‑94” and “post‑94” CRAs and options for sunsetting the older designation. Burn said, “the city currently has 2 CRAs. They're both pre 94 CRAs,” and explained the practical tradeoffs: “The benefit of a pre 94 CRA is it's a 100% abatement. You don't need to do agreements, and there's, there's, there's no other ancillary approvals.”

Why it matters: pre‑1994 CRAs can grant automatic, as‑of‑right tax abatements that limit the city’s ability to set project‑level conditions. Burn said a post‑1994 CRA requires written agreements before construction and therefore gives the city “a lot more flexibility to incentivize projects they want and non incentivize projects they don't want.” Committee members…