Dan Horrigan is betting his legacy as mayor of Akron on his next move.
Monday at 3 p.m. in council chambers, he and city planners will present a comprehensive housing strategy to revive a once vibrant, All-American city.
“If I’m going to be known for something, it’s growing the city,” Horrigan told the Beacon Journal.
“I’m not going to manage my eventual decline. I’m not here for that.”
Horrigan’s “catalyst, enabler and facilitator” is a tax abatement program for residential property owners and developers.
The program, which Horrigan hopes to have ready for the council’s approval before July, would encourage new home construction and upgrades by forgiving property taxes on the improvements.
City planners are leaning toward 10- or 15-year abatements, which conform with state law and would boost investment.
Other cities, including Cleveland and Cuyahoga Falls, have reported success pioneering such programs.
Falls taxpayers qualify for new homes valued at $125,000 or more or on improvements that add $10,000 or more to the property value. The program forgives 75 percent of additional property taxes, and 100 percent on upgrades for historic structures, for seven years.
But Cuyahoga Falls’ program covers only downtown properties a few blocks east or west of the Cuyahoga River. The city is conducting a housing survey of properties east of state Route 8, with the hope that the council there will approve a second tax abatement area to rehab older homes and spur economic development.
Horrigan’s team wants no limits on project cost, 100 percent of the additional taxes (not 75 percent) to be abated and all 62.4 square miles of Akron to participate. He looks at West Market from Highland Square to Fairlawn, with its row of bagel and coffee shops, and asks why the same can’t be realized on East Market Street or Kenmore Boulevard or North Howard Street.
To do so, he’ll be converting one-way streets into two-ways and encouraging community groups to engage entrepreneurs and businesses. And he’ll need state approval to declare all of Akron a “community reinvestment area,” as Cleveland did before rolling out its tax abatement program decades ago.
Two reports by Cleveland State University researchers found promise in Cleveland, which sets no minimum limit on new home values but does place environmental requirements. Researchers found that the program attracted and retained higher income home buyers, whose earnings were three-times higher on average. And the rate of new home construction accelerated faster in Cleveland than the county on the whole.
In short, Cleveland appears to have come out ahead, even after factoring in forgone tax revenue.
Research driven
Horrigan’s team, led by City Planner Jason Segedy, is gathering a mountain of research.
The first bundle of information will be presented to the council Monday.
In two weeks, the Ohio Greater Policy Center, an economic think tank, will provide a report on best practices implemented elsewhere to create more marketable and healthy housing.
The last report from the Philadelphia-based Reinvestment Fund is expected in March. It dissects Akron into 200 housing markets and analyzes the city’s permit process.
From the research, Segedy rates a quarter of the city’s structures as good and a quarter with “fairly significant distress,” accented by low values, deterioration and vacancy. The middle half, what Segedy calls “still solid,” is where the city figures the tax abatement incentive will take hold.
The housing picture isn’t as bad as in Youngstown, Dayton or Toledo, Segedy said. But it’s not good, either. Akron has an oversupply of unmarketable housing, population decline and a relatively low cost of living.
“It’s good for everything unless you want to make money building stuff,” Segedy said of one thing of which he’d like to see more.
Builder friendly
For their report, Akron engaged developers to ask what prevents them from building in the city.
Comprehensive Planning Manager Helen Tomic said builders were hesitant to be the first to invest in some communities. Because nearby home values are so low, it can be difficult to charge rent high enough to cover construction costs.
The abatement, Tomic said, could reduce that risk.
Developers also cited prohibitive zoning rules. But revamping the city’s zoning code — sections of which haven’t been touched since the 1950s — could take a couple years. Segedy referenced a recent rewrite in Buffalo, N.Y., he’d like to emulate, though in less than the six years and 242 public meetings it took to complete.
The idea will be to create guidelines “less restrictive on use” and “more restrictive on aesthetics.” Horrigan described entire projects held up by curbs two inches above code.
Developers’ last concern was the city’s sluggish permit process, which the city says has improved somewhat since merging with the Summit County Building Department.
Room to grow
New investment — essentially more people and livable space — would require more city services without additional property tax revenue, at least on the abated improvements.
That’s of little concern to city administrators, who remind that Akron was built for 290,000 people and is well-positioned to serve many of the 93,000 lost since 1960.
City water pipes can handle twice the volume, Horrigan said. The city’s schools are about two-thirds full.
The number of empty seats in Akron Public Schools is expected to fall with the consolidations and “right-sizing” of the last and largest buildings, which include Kenmore and Garfield high schools. How they got so empty, though, illustrates the demographics that are crunching the economies and housing market in Akron.
Take Kenmore High School for example. Built for 1,500 students, there are about 400 today, said district spokesperson Mark Williamson. But even if all 900 high-school-aged kids in Kenmore attended the Akron high school instead of open enrolling to the south or going to charter schools, there would still be 600 empty seats.
It will be Horrigan’s goal to provide the quality of life amenities that attract these new families, starting with a downtown renovation project geared toward young professionals who prefer urban living.
City leaders don’t expect the plan to see significant results for possibly generations.
“It took 57 years since 1960 to lose this population,” said the wonkish Segedy. “Although we want to see immediate success, we’re in it for the long haul.”
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .