During the April 13 Brevard County workshop on the fate of Community Redevelopment Agencies, a parade of city and agency officials extolled the virtues of these organizations. The folks from Satellite Beach praised improvements on Shell Street. Those from Cocoa Beach praised a proposed parking garage. An apartment building in downtown Melbourne was called a game-changer.
And in the end, a single resolution emerged. Commissioner John Tobia called for CRAs to work with the county to create new interlocal agreements by Dec. 1. The motion failed on a 3-2 vote.
“This ordinance would require CRAs to come to us for a hard look at their goals and individually deal with them one-on-one to enter an agreement,” said Tobia, who has been leading an effort to reign in or eliminate community redevelopment agencies in Brevard County.
The county still plans to develop agreements with the CRAs but the commission majority didn’t want to impose a time frame.
“It’s an emotional topic. We worked so hard to get the cities to come together and appear before us so we can put this behind us,” said Commission Chair Curt Smith, who voted against a specified date.
Established by state statute, CRAs are meant to eliminate or prevent blight. Their funding comes from the annual increase in property tax revenue within the district compared to the initial year of formation. If property values rise as a result of CRA projects the agency gets the benefit. If you add up the 15 CRAs in the county, the money collected since 2002 comes to more than $64 million. Last year, these CRAs received $7.9 million.
If the CRAs did not exist, 40 percent of that $7.9 million would have gone into the county general fund – assuming property taxes increased apace. But property taxes might not have gone up, or gone up as much, without CRA projects.
Tobia believes any additional property taxes should go to the county, primarily to pay for road improvements.
“The real benefit of all municipal CRAs is they have the county paying 40 percent of the freight and the expenditures are beyond oversight,” said Scott Ellis, Brevard County Clerk of Courts, another critic.
Ellis believes the county should be out of the CRA business.
“The city can pay for all the whiz bangs any time they desire out of their funds. CRAs are designed by cities to keep the county money to fund 40 percent of their whims,” he said.
The workshop was congenial enough, for the most part, but tensions simmered underneath between proponents and opponents of the agencies. Indeed, at one point, Commissioner Kristine Isnardi threatened to call out CRA supporters by name for using profanity to attack those who want to limit the agencies.
The disparity in opinions was not lost on Melbourne City Manager Mike McNees who opened the workshop by spelling out the obvious: well-meaning people look at the same set of facts and come up with different conclusions.
“The county has funding issues and road issues, so you look at every dollar,” he said to the commissioners. “From our perspective, we see leveraged value from our investments and more employment. We want to shift from a tug of war to how we can work together, maximizing the use of the tools we have.”
Courtney Barker, Satellite Beach CRA director, pointed to the upgraded beach access at Shell Street and other improvements on a two-block long CRA-improved section as a prime example of blending CRA and private funds. Dave Allison, owner of the adjacent shopping plaza, said the improvements increased business at the plaza.
Barker also defended borrowing to fund projects, which opponents say extends the life of CRAs. “Projects are opportunistic we have to be on the developers schedule,” she said.
McNees cited the parking garage in Cocoa Beach, which will incur debt service of more than $350,000 a year.
“That’s a lot of potholes that can be fixed and a few people hired by the county,” he admitted. “But the garage represents an enormous boon to tourism, and to the downtown quality of life. The ripple effect will be well into millions of dollars.”
John Titkanich, Cocoa city manager, reminded critics that the county has been a partner in the creation of CRAs. “The city and county must approve a finding of necessity,” he said.
Tobia’s resolution at least opened the possibility that CRAs have a more definitive end game. Despite the resolution’s failure, interlocal agreements between cities, CRAs and the county are still likely at some point.
“An interlocal agreement can provide for payment of a different amount,” said county spokesman, Don Walker. Such agreements could also set time limits on the existence of the CRA, and impose other restrictions.
“Whatever is agreed to by the city and county in the interlocal agreement supersedes the requirements of the state statute,” Walker said.
Supporters like McNees opposed a time constraint to negotiate the interlocal agreement, adding there are a lot of elements that can get in the way despite best efforts.
Said Isnardi, “If we cannot get together in eight months, we are not competent.”
Smith said he trusted the CRAs to do their utmost to get it done.
“We cannot dictate to each other. The idea is to get a happy end date for the CRAs,” he said.
But Tobia expressed a concern that, without a fixed date for reaching an agreement, “we end up with another workshop to kick it down the road.”