Whitfield Jenkins has lived in West Ocala all his life. While other areas of the city have grown and brought in major retailers, he’s watched small business after small business in his neighborhood fail and homes be foreclosed.
“We’ve never had a library in that area, so it’s an area that’s been neglected by the City of Ocala," Jenkins, 74, said.
Officials at the joint public hearing on the matter agreed they don’t like what they see either.
“That’s the first impression you see when you get off of I-75. We have tremendous volume of traffic coming through our three exits in Ocala,” Ocala City Manager John Zobler said.
So the city wants to create a Community Redevelopment Area, or CRA, largely tied to improving the corridors between I-75 and downtown on U.S. 27, State Road 40 and State Road 200.
The plan keeps tax dollars in those areas for beautification projects, and to support programs to attract businesses and jobs.
One project about to built from a similar CRA in the Downtown area is the parking garage across from Ocala City Hall. Funds for that project were collected beginning in 1988.
“These are long-term instruments that require a great deal of capital to make any significant change," Zobler said. "You have to accumulate hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars to make impacts.”
Zobler said the area is so blighted the first year they’ll likely only collect $44,000 in taxes from the CRA. They expect that number to grow to $40 million over the course of 30 years.
Jenkins just hopes the historically black community gets a say in how the money is spent. He said having to remind the joint board to seek public comment at a public hearing wasn’t a good start.
“We’re not just recipients, we are contributors. We pay taxes here and we expect our tax money to give us the same results as others' tax money gives them,” he said.
After getting county approval Tuesday, the City Council is set to vote on the CRA in September. If approved, it would be the sixth such special taxing district in Marion County.