Good morning all. Here’s some news stuff today.
Six projects involving historic buildings in Greater Cincinnati will get Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits, officials with the Ohio Development Services Agency announced yesterday. Five of those projects are in the Over-the-Rhine and Pendleton area. Those include Model Group’s Market Square III project, which will create retail and office space as well as 38 residential units centered around Findlay Market. That project got the largest credit, receiving $1,690,000. Source 3’s controversial Liberty and Elm project was also a big winner, scoring more than $1,358,000 for its plan to rehab five historic buildings in OTR. The project will also involve 100,000 square feet of new construction to create 109 residential units and first-floor retail space. Critics have balked at the project’s design and its lack of affordable housing, but supporters point to the historic rehabs and the redevelopment of currently empty lots at the busy corner just north of Liberty Street. You can read more about the tax credit winners here.
• More families are experiencing homelessness this year, local service providers report. Last year, 621 families including 1,863 children sought refuge in area homeless shelters, according to data collected by Strategies to End Homelessness. The first 11 months of 2016 saw a 12 percent rise in the number of families and an 18 percent rise in the number of family members seeking assistance due to homelessness. Those numbers are lower than the actual number of people and families on the street, experts say, because many go uncounted.
• Let’s go back to development in Over-the-Rhine for a minute. There’s a lawsuit brewing after a player in plans to transform the former headquarters of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority into office space and an urban grocery says she was cut out of the deal. Zola Stewart, a local African-American businesswoman, was featured in introductory promotional material for the development led by Kingsley & Co. But she was later cut out of the deal, and now she’s crying foul, claiming that CMHA demanded her ouster. She’s threatened suit against both CMHA and Kingsley, charging the housing authority committed “discriminatory acts” against her and that Kingsley owes her $100,000 for breach of contract. CMHA denies it had any role in Stewart’s dismissal from the project and is merely negotiating the sale of the property it once occupied on Central Parkway. Kingsley, which says it is 51 percent minority-owned, has declined comment on the matter. Read more about that deal, and controversy around it, here.
• So check this out: $215 million of your state tax dollars will be headed into the pockets of big oil and gas companies should Ohio Gov. John Kasich sign Senate Bill 235, which is currently sitting on his desk. That bill extends sales tax exemptions for property owned by oil and gas companies. What’s more, it’s retroactive to 2010, meaning the state would actually be cutting those companies a check for the money. In addition to the big, big state bucks, some $49 million in local government taxes would also be ponied up for the sweet deal. There’s no guarantee Kasich will sign the bill into law — he’s struggled multiple times to raise taxes on fracking, for instance, only to have his attempts swatted away by pro-energy company Republicans in the General Assembly — but Kasich has had no comment on his intentions for the bill. Proponents of the measure, including State Rep. Bill Coley of West Chester, say it simply clarifies existing tax law, and that the expenditures in question by energy companies should never have been taxed in the first place. Opponents, however, say those companies are profiting of Ohio’s natural resources and should pay taxes on their operations.
• Finally, as we approach the end of the year, have you used all your paid vacation time? (Assuming, that is, that you’re lucky enough to get paid vacation.) According to one recent poll of a 1,000 random people, 52 percent of American workers won’t this year. What’s more, a full one-quarter of Millenials won’t take any paid vacation at all during 2016. You can read more about the survey by Bankrate here.
And I’m out. No morning news tomorrow. I’m burning the last of my vacation days since I didn’t use them all last year. Happy whatever-you-celebrate, all.
This article appears in Dec 14-21, 2016.
