Community leaders are trying to find ways to keep business booming throughout the city.
Wanzina Jackson with Economic and Community Development says, "It's a two-pronged thing. We want to bring business in and help business expand that are already here."
Their urban redevelopment plan already includes tax allocation districts and opportunity zones, but now another program called enterprise zones could make the list.
Jackson says, "Opportunity zones are income tax credits. As a part of that tax credit, it's a little different than the abatement with regard to property taxes, so that will be different. With the opportunity zones, it's done on a state level, and the enterprise zone is done on a local level."
The ten year enterprise zone program means the owner will pay no property taxes for five years and that decreases to a 20% discount by the last year.
To get these tax benefits, business owners will have to create and maintain at least five new jobs. Home owners can also get in on the tax break by making improvements that increase their property value by five times over the current assessment.
According to state law, only 10% of the city can be designated as part of the enterprise zones.
City officials can choose areas based on five criteria, including high unemployment, underdevelopment, and general blight.
Folks with the economic community development team are working to choose which neighborhoods need the designation the most. They originally laid out the zone through a part of downtown Macon stretching out to areas near Guy Paine Road.
Over the past few weeks, they removed the Second Street area from the enterprise zone proposal and are now considering other places like Houston Road.
They plan to give a progress report to a city council committee within the next few weeks.