DevelopOhio

Many months of hard work, planning, and collaboration among various partners have been rewarded this spring as the DeWine Administration announced the results of the long-anticipated Appalachian Community Grant (ACG) Program.

Eagerly anticipated details on the All Ohio Future Fund (Fund) are beginning to come to light. Ohio’s Office of Budget and Management (OBM) has scheduled a hearing December 11th on proposed rules for the Fund, which underwent a name change – from Investing in Ohio Fund – during the state budgeting process in 2023. Through the Fund, the ...

Welcome Home Ohio: County Land Banks Setting the Table for Affordable Housing Development

If you were living your life fully in late December 2022, you can be excused for having missed a big deal in the world of the American Rescue Plan Act. Your “B-sides” authors, however, grew excited at the prospect of new eligible funding categories (i.e., additional buckets of use) for recipients’ ARPA allocations. 

Much ballyhoo has accompanied the U.S. Treasury’s publication in January 2022 of its Final Rule in the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Local governments across the country are scrambling to deploy their stimulus funds in response to the pandemic, pay essential workers, provide government services, and invest in water, sewer and ...

With the U.S. Treasury’s January 2022 release of its Final Rule in the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, we began publishing this series of articles reviewing the lesser publicized aspects of that guidance (hence, the “B-sides” moniker). In this edition, we address the Treasury’s presumed eligible use of federal ...

Continuing our series of articles reviewing the lesser publicized aspects of the new American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) guidance (hence, the “B-sides” moniker), we address the U.S. Treasury’s issued guidance as to using federal stimulus funding to seed local governments’ revolving loan funds (RLFs). Specifically, we have clearer ...

Much has been written by various prognosticators regarding the January 6, 2022, release by the U.S. Treasury of its final rule as to the use by state and local governments of federal stimulus funding under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) released rules and associated program guideline documents (Brownfield Remediation and Building Demolition and Site Revitalization) to govern the disbursement of $500 million in total grant funds for distressed properties in Ohio. The rules were emergency filed and are effective as of December ...

Application deadlines for ARPA broadband funding: August 13 and August 20

For many observers tracking the state budget bill, the General Assembly’s change in the name of the state’s development agency – reverting back to the Ohio Department of Development – was breathtaking in and of itself. However, two new funding lines inserted into the measure (H.B. 110), representing $500 million in total grant funds ...

During the past decade, county land banks ramped up operations across Ohio largely employing one-time cash. The Hardest Hit Fund (HHF), sourced from Ohio’s share of mortgage industry settlement payments related to the Great Recession, was a catalytic funding source for demolishing thousands of vacant and abandoned residential structures ...

On June 1, 2021, the Ohio Senate Finance Committee released its version of the state’s biennial operating budget (HB 110), which must be signed into law by June 30, 2021. As often happens, there are millions of dollars in appropriated funds across state government, and then there are actual, no-kidding changes to unrelated elements of Ohio law also ...

In May 2021, the federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sent a county land bank case back to the district court in Dayton for reconsideration. Rejecting the winning argument at the lower level—that the owner of an abandoned property had her chance to raise objections earlier in a tax foreclosure process, which she didn’t—the ...

In late April 2021, a legislative committee in the Ohio House held its second hearing to consider creating a $100 million grant program, exclusively for county land banks, to fund commercial building demolition. Ohio’s land bank statutes are recognized as a national model, uniquely providing an opt-in for county commissioners to direct tax ...

New legislation enacted during the recent lame duck session of the General Assembly may alter the allocation of the federal income tax deduction granted for the design and installation of energy-efficient commercial building fixtures. Substitute Senate Bill 259, signed by Governor DeWine on January 9, 2021, requires public entities to ...

Taxpayers can now access a new, nonrefundable insurance premium tax credit for capital contributions to certain “transformational mixed use developments” (TMUDs).  

A new proposal in the Ohio legislature would render commercial and industrial Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) projects akin to “pre-1994” treatment.

This month, the Ohio General Assembly fast-tracked a school construction finance measure as a mini-capital appropriations bill. Amended Senate Bill (Am. SB) 4 was signed into law by Governor DeWine on July 24, 2020, after the measure was prioritized by leaders in the Ohio House and the Senate. A provision included in Am. SB 4 deserves attention among ...

In May 2020, the Ohio Supreme Court issued an opinion that carries importance for county elected officials and community and economic developers.

We’re pleased to release an updated and revised Economic IncentivesToolkit. Our team of experienced attorneys sharpened their pencils and rewrote large segments of the guide for this year. We updated the Toolkit for new JobsOhio programs, such as the Ohio Site Inventory Program.

In 2020, Ohio’s development officials are again awarding large amounts of grant funding to commercial and industrial development projects that don’t have known end users. JobsOhio is now in the midst of launching a $50 million per year grant and loan program for spec-based opportunities.