The Crestview Community Redevelopment Agency has frequently been in the news lately. What is it and how does it benefit the community?
CRESTVIEW — It’s hired an ad agency, is considering engaging a retail recruiter, is funding the city’s centennial events, and spearheaded turning downtown into a mixed-use district.
It’s the Community Redevelopment Agency.
Read Part II of this report here>>
But what is it? How does it function? What is its purpose, and how is it funded?
C.R.A. DISTRICT
Crestview’s CRA district, established in 1995, today encompasses much of downtown, plus Twin Hills Park and Martin Luther King Avenue, areas that were added when the district expanded in 1998.
It aims to combat blight.
“There has to be some sort of distress or special need with it,” Jack Dorman, owner of municipal consultants J.E. Dorman and Associates, said.
“Typically it’s a lower income area or business failings. In Crestview it was to provide impetus to do things downtown. For example the streetscape, lighting, landscaping, was all done with CRA funds.”
The agency will sunset in 2025, unless the board requests an extension from Okaloosa County.
WHAT IT DOES
“A CRA is designed to improve and enhance the conditions in a specified area,” Dorman said.
Through CRA funds and leverage it provides to obtain grants, the city embarked on a $3.7 million, three-phase downtown streetscape improvement project between 1996 and 2003.
Today that project’s results continue to enhance the historic Main Street area, with brick pavers, new street lighting, landscaping, benches and an events gazebo.
Most recently the CRA spearheaded mixed-use rezoning that reintroduces residences in the district, creating a 24-hour life to a section of town that slows down after hours.
“CRA funded that activity rather than the general fund,” Dorman said. “It’s an activity that was designed — and I believe it’s going to be successful — to bring people downtown who are going to be living, shopping and eating downtown.”
Twin Hills Park improvements, also in the agency’s scope, include a recently proposed dog park to be partially funded by recreation grant money secured by the CRA.
The Main Street Crestview Association program also falls under the CRA, providing events and improvement plans to enhance the historic district.
FUNDING
The Crestview CRA is funded through a process called tax increment financing that keeps some locally generated tax dollars from going to Okaloosa County.
“You establish a baseline,” Dorman said. “As the property goes up in value, that increase goes to the CRA, not the city, county or general fund. Over time it builds up. It becomes a source of money for the CRA to do things, take action, make improvements.”
For example, if a company in the CRA district paid $1,000 in taxes when the district was established, but was taxed $1,025 the next year when it increased in value, the $25 difference would go to the CRA, rather than the county or city.
Crestview’s CRA was established “for the expressed purpose of development and redevelopment within a defined community redevelopment area, which encompasses all of the downtown area,” according to the city’s website.
Currently the CRA has accumulated more than $1.4 million in available redevelopment funds.
Here’s a look at Crestview’s Community Redevelopment Agency:
●Established in 1995
●Sunsets in 2025
●Current available redevelopment funds: $1,406,128
●Board members: President Joe Blocker, Bill Cox, Doug Faircloth, Shannon Hayes, Dr. Margareth Larose-Pierre and JB Whitten. One vacancy
●Attorney: community redevelopment specialist Carol Leone
●Marketing and advertising firm: Petermann Agency, Fort Walton Beach
●Program team leader: Brenda Smith
●Main Street Crestview Association manager: Patti Gonzo
●Office: Crestview City Hall
THE CRESTVIEW C.R.A. AT A GLANCE
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview's CRA, Part I: What is it anyway?