Downtown Property Tax Incentives?

[Big E]

Does anyone know if Omaha has ever considered property tax breaks (or other incentives) to help spur downtown residential development? For example, Baltimore has an incentive program for new construction within the city limits that phases in your property taxes over five years (50% discount first year, 40% 2nd, 30% 3rd, etc...) On a $400,000 row house in Baltimore (extremely common), it would save you approximately $15,000 over the first five years.

Or perhaps set up a special tax incentive zone in and around DTO. Figure out where the city wants residential in the DT area, mark it off, and if you build/rehab in that area in the next 10 years, you get XX% off your property tax for as long as you own your house, or for 15 years, or some other number...

I realize the developers can receive special tax credits, but those are most assuredly never passed on to the home buyer. They will usually just make a project financially feasible for the developer - kind of a deal-breaker.

I know that it might look like they're giving away tax revenue for a few years, but 50% of something is a heckuva lot better than 100% of nothing. And it might make that 600 condo number look small in the future.

Just some thoughts.

-Big E