|
📢 What You Can Do: Contact members of the Senate Rules Committee before Monday at 2:00 p.m. and urge them to amend SB 1242 to preserve local authority to use CRAs.
Click here for contact information for Senate Rules Committee members.
Ask Senators to:
- Remove the prohibition on initiating new CRA projects or issuing new debt after October 1, 2025.
- Remove the ban on creating new CRAs after July 1, 2025.
- Allow CRAs to continue their important work past 2045.
- Focus on CRA transparency and accountability — not elimination of a vital tool.
FLC Position: Oppose SB 1242 unless amended to address these concerns.
CRAs: Locally Funded Without Raising Taxes or Using State Dollars
CRAs were created to revitalize areas suffering from urban decay and crime, encourage private-sector investment, support job creation, and address the affordable housing crisis—all without raising taxes or relying on state funds. Instead, CRAs use a self-sustaining financing model known as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), where a portion of the increased property tax revenues generated by redevelopment is reinvested back into the area. This ensures local tax dollars are used locally to improve infrastructure, attract private investment, and support the businesses that choose to be in a CRA.
CRAs Are Essential to Addressing Florida’s Affordable Housing Crisis
Florida is experiencing a severe shortage of workforce and affordable housing, which threatens our economic competitiveness and workforce stability. Rather than eliminating CRAs, the Legislature should recognize them as a critical tool for increasing affordable housing supply—without additional state spending. Many CRAs already prioritize workforce housing, using their funds to incentivize private investment in new housing projects, rehabilitate existing properties to increase housing stock, and improve infrastructure needed to support housing development.
Eliminating CRAs would strip local governments of one of their most effective, locally funded tools to address Florida’s housing crisis.
CRAs Are Critical for Small Businesses and Local Economies
Florida’s economy thrives when small businesses succeed. A primary focus of CRAs is to support entrepreneurs and small business owners by providing funding for commercial property improvements to revitalize business districts, investing in streetscape enhancements and safety improvements that attract customers, and driving private-sector redevelopment projects that create jobs and economic opportunity.
At a time when small businesses are struggling with inflation and high costs, eliminating CRAs would make it even harder for them to grow, compete, and create jobs.
| 
