Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Cleveland's New Tax Abatement Policy

I'm going to direct you to the City Council Press Release on this, but wanted to quote or highlight a few items here.

First: "....Council is in agreement with Mayor Frank G. Jackson regarding the classification of downtown as a neighborhood. As a result, the new policy contains no distinction between downtown and the neighborhoods, which eliminates tiered abatement downtown...."

Second: ".... Understanding the need for energy efficiency and its impact on the future of the City and the environment, Council convened a green building working group, which determined it would be reasonable to expect the development community to prepare for a higher standard for development by 2010. Therefore, on January 1, 2010, new construction will be required to meet energy star standards...."

Would have loved for a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) component to be recognized in a new abatement policy. Revisiting it again in 2010 is much smarter however than the 20 year plan first put into effect. Just my two cents. Anyway, here is the entire press release. Peace Out - 3C