GCP Opposes Key Parts of CEA-Supported Community Benefits Ordinance
Post date
May 11, 2023
Body
Cleveland’s regional chamber of commerce is asking City Council to scale back its proposal to require more community benefits from developers that receive taxpayer incentives.
Citing “unintended consequences that would actually chill development,” Greater Cleveland Partnership CEO Baiju Shah asked council not to require community benefits from developers who receive incentives in the form of tax abatements and tax-increment financing.
But those types of incentives “are really the most popular and lucrative incentives in the city’s economic development toolbox,” said Cleveland Economic Development Director Tessa Jackson. Excluding them, she said, would render council’s proposed community benefits law “ineffective and impotent.”