Guest Author
As a Delray Beach City Commissioner and CRA Board member, I’ve seen firsthand how Community Redevelopment Agencies (CRAs) transform neighborhoods.
Delray’s CRA has played a critical role in our city’s revitalization for over 30 years — from improving neglected areas and stabilizing property values to creating affordable housing and attracting businesses to underserved parts of the city.
These efforts aren’t abstract policy — they’re real progress that impacts real people.
CRAs were created by the Florida Legislature in 1969 to give local governments the tools to revitalize areas facing disinvestment and economic challenges. They’re funded not by the state but through Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which reinvests the growth in property taxes within a designated area back into that area. It’s local dollars solving local problems.
House Bill 991 would stop all new CRA projects and borrowing after Oct. 1, 2025, and phase out CRAs entirely. This kind of top-down, one-size-fits-all mandate — especially one driven by misunderstanding or political vendetta — doesn’t belong in a state that prides itself on home rule.
Rep. Mike Giallombardo, who filed the bill, claims some CRAs misuse funds for things like parades in his district. But those isolated concerns can and should be addressed by enforcing the oversight tools we already have: annual reports, financial audits, required redevelopment plans, and the ability of local governments to step in or even dissolve a CRA when needed.
Instead, this bill would punish cities like Boynton Beach and especially Delray Beach, where our CRA has responsibly invested in stabilizing neighborhoods and creating long-term opportunities.
Delray has set its sights on bringing a grocery store to the West Atlantic corridor — a designated food desert — and is planning over $200 million in infrastructure improvements to roads and utilities in underserved neighborhoods.
These critical efforts would be halted under HB 991.
Worse, HB 991 completely undercuts the Legislature’s own recent commitment to affordable housing through the Live Local Act. You can’t champion housing access with one hand and take away the tools that make it possible with the other.
DOGE-style policies (Dissolve, Overhaul, Gut Everything) might make headlines, but they destroy progress. The Florida League of Cities agrees — they’ve come out in strong opposition to this bill. So has the City of Delray Beach, where we’ll be voting on a resolution opposing HB 991 at our next meeting. We hope other cities across Florida will join us.
Let’s protect the tools that work.
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Rob Long is a City Commissioner in Delray Beach and a candidate for the Florida House in District 90.
