The mission of the Town of Lake Placid Community Redevelopment Agency is to eliminate and prevent conditions of slum and blight by funding eligible infrastructure projects such as: newsidewalks and sidewalk improvements; roadwork including repaving and new roads; traffic calming; stormwater improvements; street lighting and other street improvements; water andwastewater collection and treatment system improvements, and other CRA-identified infrastructure. Projects consistent with the Goals and Objectives of the Plan are determined to be eligible projects that are listed as short term and long term projects in this Plan. An amendment to the list of eligible projects requires a supermajority vote of the CRA Board. The current members of the Lake Placid CRA are the town council members, Ken Leblanc and Frank Hartzell.
A CRA is not funded by a separate tax. Instead, it uses the increase in property tax revenue within a specific district.
For example, if a property is taxed on a value of $100,000 one year and rises to $120,000 the next, the taxes collected on that $20,000 increase don’t simply go into the general budget. A portion of that increase is set aside and placed into the CRA fund. If that increase generated roughly $300 to $400 in additional property taxes, part of that amount would be directed into the CRA. One property alone doesn’t amount to much. But across an entire district, those increases add up. As values rise over time, the CRA can generate meaningful funding to reinvest back into the same area. In fact, the Lake Placid CRA has now accumulated more than $600,000.00.
Not all CRAs operate the same way, even though they are all created under the same Florida law. Each city adopts its own redevelopment plan, and that plan determines how the CRA will actually function. Community Redevelopment Agencies all operate under the same Florida law, but each city decides how its CRA will actually function through its own redevelopment plan. That’s why they can look very different in practice—Sebring’s CRA has included property purchases and larger redevelopment projects and Avon Park leans heavily on grants to private property owners to fix and improve buildings.
The structure is the same everywhere: a defined district, a dedicated funding source, and a long-term plan. What differs is how each community chooses to use it. For more details about the Lake Placid CRA, visit https://www.lakeplacidfl.net/200/Community-Redevelopment-Agency
