Title
Authorizing the City Council Committee of the Whole to explore the geographic scope of the 10-year real estate tax abatement.
Body
WHEREAS, The 10-year real estate tax abatement programs were originally implemented across the entirety of the City to incentivize growth and development in Philadelphia and to "help revitalize communities, retain residents, [and] attract home and business-owners to the City of Philadelphia"; and
WHEREAS, According to Pennsylvania law, a local taxing authority may offer property tax exemptions in "deteriorating areas," which a municipal governing body determines to be physically blighted on the basis of the presence of unstable, substandard, unsanitary, or overcrowded residential buildings, "a substantial amount of unimproved, overgrown and unsightly vacant land," or a disproportionate number of delinquent properties; and
WHEREAS, The municipal governing body is legally required to hold at least one public hearing to determine the boundaries of deteriorated areas that are eligible for tax exemptions; and
WHEREAS, According to a 2018 study by the City Controller, "An Analysis of Tax Abatements in Philadelphia," six percent of neighborhoods across the City account for 59 percent of the properties that receive a tax abatement. Moreover, while abated properties valued over $700,000 represent seven percent of all abated properties, they receive over half of the overall tax benefit; and
WHEREAS, Properties receiving tax abatements are disproportionately clustered in neighborhoods such as Graduate Hospital, Rittenhouse, and Northern Liberties, which are among the most affluent in the City and do not face the disinvestment and deterioration that rationalized the original creation of the 10-year real estate tax abatement programs; and
WHEREAS, The Reinvestment Fund identifies areas in the City with high Displacement Risk Ratios, which quantify the relationship between changing sale prices and income. Longtime re...
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