The daily newspaper’s article on the impact of property tax reforms on the Community Maritime Park- ominously titled “Park money at risk” – has resurrected the doom and gloom naysayers.
The article declares “A cut in property taxes, as widely anticipated from the Legislature, would reduce the amount of money available to the CRA. And, if the state were to do away with property taxes altogether, as some lawmakers have proposed, CRA money would dry up.”
Wait second….let’s stop and look at the facts.
There are two proposals in Tallahassee that have any chance of passing:
Gov. Crist’s plan doubles homestead exemption – few properties in the CRA are homesteads.
The House plan calls for rolling back the valuations to 2001 levels – then allowing for growth and inflation. What’s the exact impact of that is unknown. However, there has been significant growth and improvements in the CRA since 2001 so a rollback may not be lethal to the CRA.
The idea of replacing property taxes with sales taxes hasn’t gotten much support.
Before the city council or anyone begins canceling a project that has been approved by the voters, more hard analysis needs to be done.
There are about 140 CRA districts in the state – many with huge projects similar to the Community Maritime Park.
Destin alone has two CRA districts with plans that have $94 million worth of improvements and construction projects.
Ft. Lauderdale is in the middle of $45 million CRA development plan.
Miami’s new Florida Marlins baseball park depends on CRA monies.
Several have issued bonds or have lines of credit. Palm Bay’s Bayfront CRA recently issued a $6 million bond to fund the first phase of its redevelopment. Satellite Beach has taken out a $10 million line of credit to jump start its public improvements.
These I found with a cursory Google search. There are many more. The state legislature won’t and can’t abandon all these economic development projects.