Council advances citywide Community Reinvestment Area discussion, seeks flexibility on affordability tiers

Delaware City Council on April 14 held a public hearing on an ordinance to amend and reestablish the city's Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) and expand its boundaries to the city limits, and asked staff to return with language giving council more flexibility on affordability targets.

City planning staff said the ordinance would make the CRA citywide and remove the need for repeated housing surveys and legal work for each new project. "Essentially this is just an area where you can perform tax abatements, to essentially attract commercial, industrial, residential development," said Nick Langford, a staff member, during the presentation.

The proposal would replace piecemeal expansions and offer the same core incentives as the current CRA, with one addition: a new 10-year, 70% tax-abatement option for multifamily projects that dedicate at least 20% of units to households at 50% to 60% of area median income (AMI). The presenter said that the expansion is intended to boost housing and economic development opportunities and that, administratively, it would save time and legal expense for staff and applicants.

Why it matters: A citywide CRA would let staff and developers use a single, consistent framework for tax-abatement requests anywhere inside Delaware city limits instead of running separate housing surveys and legal reviews for projects outside current CRA boundaries. The change is intended to speed response to development requests and make incentives predictable for builders.

Council members raised concerns about the affordability tiers written into the draft. "I would like to see us be able to amend that," Councilmember Schaffer said, arguing that the 50%/60% AMI bands in the draft could be too rigid and that the council should retain authority to set affordability levels based on demonstrated local need (for example, 50% to 80% AMI depending on the project and the documented need). Several council members said they favored a citywide CRA in principle but asked staff to return with amendment language that would let council and staff set AMI percentages on a case-by-case basis.

Action taken: Council closed the public hearing and instructed staff to prepare amended language and return the ordinance for a third reading. No final vote to adopt the ordinance was taken at the April 14 meeting.

What happens next: Staff and legal will draft amendments to add flexibility to the affordable-unit set-aside and bring the ordinance back for a third reading and final vote. Council members said they prefer to see the revised proposal before voting.

Context: The CRA is authorized by the Ohio Revised Code and is commonly used by Ohio cities to offer temporary property-tax exemptions on the increased value resulting from building or renovation to encourage development.

Provenance: Meeting transcript includes the ordinance reading and staff presentation followed by council questions and direction to return with revised language (see excerpted transcript passages below).

Ending: Council took no final vote on the CRA April 14; staff will return with amended language for council consideration at a future meeting.