Cincinnati officials plan to establish a new Office of Strategic Growth to streamline economic development in the city, and establish a 10-year cycle for updating a comprehensive plan for all city neighborhoods.
Council member Evan Nolan announced the plan Tuesday, which was recommended by the third-party Futures Commission nearly two years ago.
"This new office will provide a central hub and a single point of contact for our city's development processes and growth initiatives, ensuring collaboration and clear communication between all of our city's departments and any third party engaging with the city," Nolan said.
Nolan says the office will be embedded in the city manager's office and will be budget-neutral when it launches within the next couple of months. It will likely need funding in the next city budget that begins in July.
"By creating one door to the city for complex projects, our goal is to get to the finish line more quickly and more often — and not just in some communities, but in every community," said Mayor Aftab Pureval. "And we'll be the first to admit that there's more work to do to spread development and investment into all corners of our city."
Nolan also has introduced a plan for all city neighborhoods to get a comprehensive plan every 10 years, in which residents identify what they want the neighborhood to look like and what kind of development projects they want. City Council often sees conflict between a developer and a community council over specific projects.
"There are neighborhoods who sometimes feel that the city and developers are thrusting development upon them with only sporadic or uncertain occasions to react to development plans coming to their neighborhood, often when a deal is already done," Nolan said. "Or worse, some neighborhoods feel like they have been neglected by the city and developers and are not seeing much investment in their community at all."
Both motions are co-sponsored by a majority of City Council and are expected to pass this week.
Office of Strategic Growth
"We have heard from many in the development community — those who we want and need to invest in our city to build much needed housing and workplaces — about how challenging it can be to navigate the city's bureaucracy," Nolan said. "It can sometimes feel like a culture of 'no' or 'not yet,' or 'you need to talk to someone else.' "
The Futures Commission was a panel created by Mayor Pureval in late 2022 and chaired by Procter & Gamble CEO Jon Moeller. The 33 other members were business, community and labor leaders in Greater Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Chamber managed a year-long process of evaluating the city's financial standing and issue recommendations for stabilizing the budget.
The final report was released in April 2024, with more than 30 recommendations. Moeller told city officials it should be adopted as a whole package, not piecemeal. That's not how City Council, Mayor Pureval or city administration have approached it, however.
One recommendation was to create an Office of Strategic Growth within the city manager's office, staffed by three or four full-time employees. The office would "push other departments to implement a 'culture of yes' when it comes to investment and growth in Cincinnati" and would directly oversee at least three other city departments:
- Community and Economic Development
- Planning and Engagement
- Buildings and Inspections
Nolan's motion mostly follows those guidelines. Rather than directing the size of the office, the motion asks city administration to prepare a report within 90 days "detailing the necessary additional staffing and budget requirements" needed in the fiscal year 2027 budget.
One topic the new office will likely tackle is changes to the city's commercial tax abatement system. The city's Department of Community and Economic Development presented a full plan to the Housing Advisory Board in 2022, but it never went further.
"We decided to pause the commercial tax abatement reform work while we build the infrastructure and change the infrastructure around development," Mayor Pureval said Tuesday. "Our intent is very much to continue that work at some point, but we're putting these other pieces in place as a priority first."
See the full motion below (article continues after):
Neighborhood plan cycle
Nolan says while the city puts more focus and effort into growing economic development, they want to make sure residents are not pushed aside. One way to address that concern is with a neighborhood plan, which is an official legal document approved by City Council.
According to City Planning and Engagement, a neighborhood plan "sets the aspirations, vision, goals, and strategies for the long-term physical, social, and economic development of a neighborhood."
"So when a development proposal does come to a neighborhood, I think the request of the neighborhood community council is to evaluate any proposal along the lines of that neighborhood plan," Nolan said. "To be less about, 'yes we like it,' or 'no we don't,' and more about, 'here's where it meets our neighborhood vision, and here's where it doesn't.' "
Nolan says more than 30 of the city's 52 neighborhoods do not have a comprehensive plan updated within the last 10 years, or have never had a comprehensive plan.
That includes Hyde Park, with a comprehensive plan last updated in 1986. The neighborhood is one of several currently going through an update process, but it's not finished yet and could not be part of the debate over a controversial development on Hyde Park Square last year.
Nolan is proposing a Neighborhood Planning Cycle for the Department of City Planning and Engagement to provide each neighborhood (or group of neighborhoods) with a new plan approximately every decade.
The motion outlines five phases for the planning cycle:
- Pre-planning
- Neighborhood planning process
- Economic development discussion
- City implementation
- Continued activation
The Planning Department is requested to prepare a report within 90 days detailing an implementation plan to be included in the fiscal year 2027 budget.
The report will include a list of all city neighborhoods and where they currently fit into the five-phases listed above. Priority will be given to neighborhoods that:
- fall under the "Lift" classification of the Residential Tax Abatement program, or
- do not have a current neighborhood plan, or
- have recently expressed interest in a new neighborhood plan
Eight neighborhoods are actively updating or creating a neighborhood plan: Roselawn, Mt. Washington, neighborhoods of the lower Mill Creek valley, Madisonville, Clifton, Winton Hills, North Avondale and Hyde Park.
See the full motion below:
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