I suppose there are many questions that are bound to be raised when a study such as the Maxine Goodman Levine College of Urban Affairs recently released report on Cleveland's current abatement program (pdf format) is released. Especially when the report states that granting people abatements on property taxes does not adversely affect programs that are primarily funded by property taxes (see Ohio Schools) and that tax abatement programs actually create more money then they lose.
There are some quite interesting arguments in the report such as 60% of people that move to new homes in Cleveland would not do so without the tax abatement program, that the school system is near to last when it comes to factors people take into account when moving to Cleveland (especially if they don't want to fund it) and that "very few abated homes have been built for upper-level incomes" (new homes costing over $200,000).
There was also a discussion on WCPN (audio link) this morning where the following were guests:
Guests: Mark Rosentraub, Dean, CSU/Levin College of Urban Affairs; Joe Cimperman, City Council member; Nate Coffman, Executive director Cleveland Homebuilders Association; Tasha Flournoy, WCPN; Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer
Lately I had been looking into Cleveland's Landbank Program to scout decent building sites to build a fairly cheap, sustainable domicile of my own from which I would eventually enjoy raising a brood. However the online database for Cleveland is not online anymore and when I called for information it seemed I was really annoying the person who was to take my request and allow me to come down to City Hall during their amazingly flexible and long hours of operation and put down some cold hard cash money for a "print out" of available parcels.
I may not be a web genius but I am pretty sure that if you can create a print out you can post it online in a database format similar to what some other Ohio Cities are doing.
What does this have to do with the abatement program? Well, not a lot directly. I am just trying to point out that Cleveland has some rather amazing programs for people to utilize if they would like to move into one of the many neighborhoods that exist and while some programs may seem like another attempt to nickel and dime constituents or like shortsighted solutions that actually devalue the city they are meant to support one can easily argue that the problems created by these programs are actually opportunities to discover ways to refinance local schools and build stronger communities of people that want to live here.
I don't really mean to seem this optimistic, it just happens naturally sometimes.
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