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Resident asks about 15-year tax abatement; councilor explains CRA and TIF land-swap purpose
Summary
A Brook Park resident asked whether the city would grant a 15-year tax abatement on recently swapped land; a councilor explained the Community Redevelopment Act allows 15-year abatements for new improvements and that the city used a land swap to enable a TIF, separate from the CRA abatement.
During public comment on Dec. 2 resident Elizabeth Stairs asked whether a 15-year tax abatement would apply to city-owned property that was swapped and then developed, citing prior abatements granted to projects such as Harley-Davidson.
Stairs asked whether any developer building on that city-owned parcel would receive a 15-year tax break. "So if the city owns the property, does everybody that builds on that property get a 15 year tax break?" she asked.
Councilor (speaker 12) responded from the dais to clarify misconceptions and explained two separate incentives. He said the 15-year abatement comes from the Community Redevelopment Act (CRA), under which any qualifying new improvement may be eligible for a CRA abatement anywhere in the city. Separately, the councilor said the recent land swap—by which the city temporarily took title to the parcel and then transferred it back to the developer—was done to make the property eligible for tax-increment financing (TIF), enabling Brook Park to capture future incremental tax revenues for development in that district. "We did the land swap to city and then back to the Haddam Sports Group because the city then owned it, which qualifies us for a certain TIF," the councilor said.
The councilor emphasized the CRA abatement and the TIF serve different policy goals: CRA reduces property-tax obligations to incentivize new development; TIF allows the municipality to use the increment generated by new development for public improvements within the district. He said the developer could accept or decline the CRA abatement and that the land-swap was performed to secure TIF treatment, not to automatically grant CRA benefits.
The exchange leaves open whether a final developer agreement will include a CRA abatement; councilors said such decisions would be spelled out in any future development agreement and related legislation.
