EATON — The City of Eaton is looking to spur residential development by adding new single-family home construction to the city’s Community Reinvestment Area ordinance, allowing such structures to be eligible for tax exemption incentives under certain guidelines.
“We’ve had some success with our community reinvestment area for industrial and commercial developments over the last few years. And, we’ve had a lot of discussion about residential housing over the last couple years, so we want to use this program for residential housing. Staff has reviewed and recommended a 50 percent property tax abatement, and that would last for a five-year period. This may help spur on some construction of new residential housing. And it could be helpful to encourage homebuyers to our area,” City Manager Brad Collins said during council’s Monday, June 17, meeting.
Council held the first reading of the amended ordinance. Once approved, officials will create a 1–2-page application for single-family residential projects to apply for the abatement. Once the application is approved, the information gets sent on to the Preble County Auditor’s Office, and the five-year period will begin.
The CRA program for residential homes will be reviewed for its success and for continuation, and would be discontinued when officials saw there was no longer a need.
In other business, council:
• Received a report from Eaton Municipal Court Clerk Chantelle Jennings.
“I’m just here to give a brief update on things that have gone on at the court,” Jennings shared. “I would like to start by thanking you for updating our security system. It was very much needed. It was a little unnerving to have the vendor say that they didn’t have anybody that can work on our system because it was so old. We are very thankful to be on the same system now that the city uses and the Sheriff’s Office, and I think that’s just going to be an added bonus and make our building all the more safe.
“We do need to upgrade our audio system in both courtrooms existed prior to the building,” she added.
The building is 20 years old this year.
Jennings said she has sought out grants for replacing the audio system but has yet to garner any. She will continue to do so, as the update will be needed in the future.
“Probably the biggest thing that we’ve done, and I have to give credit to Sherry Cunningham, who’s our bookkeeper, we transitioned from Capitol Recovery as our collection agency to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, allowing for much better fee recovery,” she noted.
According to Jennings, from Jan. 1, 2023 through May 31, 2024, “we sent capital recovery $11,267, mostly consisting of their fees. They sent us back $1,467.40 meaning that they kept $9,799.65.”
“We moved to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office fully in October of 2023. Through May 2024, we’ve received $57,800.55 just in that timeframe. So that’s been a vast improvement and we look for that only to continue,” she said.
•Approved a resolution authorizing the city manager to contribute to the purchase of a dispatch console setup at the Preble County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center, as requested by Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson at council’s April meeting (Mayor Matt Venable, Vice-Mayor David Kirsch, Chris Carr, yes; Brad Moore, abstain; Jim Ball, no. The resolution authorized a contribution of $73,000, with $67,247.55 from American Recovery Program Act (ARPA) funds and $5,752.45 from Public Safety.
•Heard from a resident enquiring about the city making it legal to drive a licensed golf cart on the city streets.
Eaton Police Division currently does golf cart inspections for the entire county, but the carts are not permitted to be driven on the streets, according to officials.
State laws mandate the carts must be titled and licensed.
City officials will review the laws surrounding golf carts and will determine what, if any action they will take.
Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.
