Downtown Residential Community Reinvestment Area

Ordinance Review

The residential tax incentive generally provides a ten-year, 75% property tax exemption for new or rehabilitated residential housing in the Downtown Columbus area through the creation of the Columbus Downtown Residential Community Reinvestment Area (CRA).

In addition, the ordinance creates higher levels of incentives for Affordable Housing, Student Housing, Redevelopment Housing, Targeted Area Housing and Residential Remodeling as follows:

 

Housing Classification	Amount	Term
Affordable Housing	100%	15 years (new)
		12 years (renovate 3+ units)
		10 years (renovate 1-2 units)
Student Housing	100%	10 years
Redevelopment Housing	100%	10 years
Targeted Area Housing	100%	10 years
Residential Remodel project of two units or less and remodeling cost of at least $2,500	100%	10 years
Residential Remodel project of more than two units and remodeling cost of at least $5,000	100%	10 years

The levels of incentives described above for the Downtown area and for each housing classification above are net effective levels of exemption arrived at by generally applying 100% exemptions coupled with offsetting payments in lieu of taxes ("PILOT's") by the property owners, with those PILOT's generally payable to the Columbus City Schools.

Related commercial use improvements such as street level retail in a multi-story residential structure will received the same level of incentive as the residential improvement in that structure if those improvements do not exceed one-third of the gross square footage of the structure.  No incentives are provided for commercial use improvements where they exceed one-third of the gross square footage of the structure.

The award of these real property tax exemption incentives to the above described eligible projects will be by the Director of Development acting as the City's designated "Housing Officer" and does not require any additional action by council.