The city of Akron has lost 93,000 residents since 1960, so it has room to grow. Now it has a draft housing plan that uses a tax abatement program modeled on examples in Cleveland and Cuyahoga Falls.
Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan and the city's planners today will "present a comprehensive housing strategy to revive a once vibrant, All-American city," reports Doug Livingston.
"Planning to Grow Akron," as the newly released housing strategy is called, relies in part on a tax abatement program that Livingston previewed in an article from late January 2017.
In the current article, Horrigan reports on some of the additional changes that will support the tax abatement program, including "converting one-way streets into two-ways and encouraging community groups to engage entrepreneurs and businesses. And [the city will] need state approval to declare all of Akron a 'community reinvestment area,' as Cleveland did before rolling out its tax abatement program decades ago."
The article also details the work of the city's planners in researching the plan.
FULL STORY: Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan stakes legacy on growing population
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Chicago Awarded $2M Reconnecting Communities Grant
Community advocates say the city’s plan may not do enough to reverse the negative impacts of a major expressway.
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