On February 20, 2024, Legislative Director Kevin Kinnally testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in support of HB 765- Property Tax- Credit for Hotel or Residential Development Projects. This bill aims to incentivize economic development and increase affordable housing stock by enabling local governments to enact a property tax credit for specified hotel and residential development projects.
MACo generally supports legislation that provides broad authority to enact tax incentives for revitalization and tax relief purposes and welcomes the opportunity to work with state policymakers to develop flexible and optional tools to create broad or targeted tax incentives. Counties prefer the approach offered by HB 765, as it provides local autonomy to determine the best way to provide these incentives rather than those that mandate reductions in local revenue sources.
The bill authorizes local governments to grant a property tax credit for a hotel and residential development project that is newly constructed or involves substantial rehabilitation or revitalization of existing structures, and the project substantially increases the assessed value of the property. In addition, if the development includes more than twenty residential units, at least fifteen percent of all residential units must be affordable for households earning less than eighty percent of the area’s median income.
HB 765 was heard in the opposite chamber, the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, on March 26. MACo submitted testimony in support of this bill.
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