Leon County Rewrote Its Abatement Rules. The Job Minimum, the Local Hiring Rule, and the Neighbor Protection Didn't Make It.
On July 27 the Commissioners Court threw out Leon County’s tax abatement rules and adopted new ones. I read the old and the new side by side. Parts of the rewrite are a genuine improvement, and I’ll get to those. But six things came out of our rules that day: The twenty-job minimum The requirement that half the new hires live in Leon County The step-down schedule that shrank the tax break year by year The rule barring projects that create adverse impacts on adjacent properties The rule barring projects that pose a hazard to public safety The requirement that the project wouldn’t have been built here anyway Every number an applicant could actually fail is gone. ...