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As Introduced
136th
General Assembly
Regular
Session
S. B. No. 424
2025-2026
Senators Reynolds, Lang
To
amend section 349.01 of the Revised Code
regarding
new community authorities.
BE
IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:
Section
1.
That
section 349.01 of the Revised Code be amended to read as follows:
Sec.
349.01.
As
used in this chapter:
(A)
"New community" means a community or development of
property in relation to an existing community planned so that the
resulting community includes facilities for the conduct of
industrial, commercial, residential, cultural, educational, and
recreational activities, and designed in accordance with planning
concepts for the placement of utility, open space, and other
supportive facilities.
(B)
"New community development program" means a program for the
development of a new community characterized by well-balanced and
diversified land use patterns and which includes land acquisition and
land development, the acquisition, construction, operation, and
maintenance of community facilities, and the provision of services
authorized in this chapter.
A
new community development program may take into account any existing
community in relation to which a new community is developed for
purposes of being characterized by well-balanced and diversified land
use patterns.
(C)
"New community district" means the area of land described
by the developer in the petition as set forth in division (A) of
section 349.03 of the Revised Code for development as a new community
and any lands added to the district by amendment of the resolution
establishing the community authority.
(D)
"New community authority" means a body corporate and
politic in this state, established pursuant to section 349.03 of the
Revised Code and governed by a board of trustees as provided in
section 349.04 of the Revised Code.
(E)
"Developer" means any person, organized for carrying out a
new community development program who owns or controls, through
leases of at least seventy-five years' duration, options, or
contracts to purchase, the land within a new community district, or
any municipal corporation, township, county, or port authority that
owns the land within a new community district, or has the ability to
acquire such land, either by voluntary acquisition or condemnation in
order to eliminate slum, blighted, and deteriorated or deteriorating
areas and to prevent the recurrence thereof. "Developer"
may also mean a person, municipal corporation, township, county, or
port authority that controls land within a new community district
through leases of at least seventy-five years' duration. "Developer"
includes a lessor that continues to own and control land for purposes
of this chapter pursuant to leases with a ninety-nine-year renewable
term, so long as both of the following apply:
(1)
The developer's new community district consists of at least five
leases described in this section.
(2)
The leases are subject to forfeiture for all of the following:
(a)
Failing to pay taxes and assessments;
(b)
Failing to pay an annual fee of up to one per cent of rent for
sanitary purposes and improvements made to streets;
(c)
Failing to keep the premises as required by sanitary and police
regulations of the developer.
(F)
"Organizational board of commissioners" means any of the
following:
(1)
For a new community district that is located in only one county, the
board of county commissioners of that county;
(2)
For a new community district that is located in more than one county,
a board consisting of the members of the board of county
commissioners of each of the counties in which the district is
located, provided that action of the board shall require a majority
vote of the members of each separate board of county commissioners;
(3)
For a new community district that is located entirely within the
boundaries of a municipal corporation or for a new community district
where more than half of the new community district is located within
the boundaries of the most populous municipal corporation of a
county, the legislative authority of the municipal corporation;
(4)
For a new community district that is comprised entirely of
unincorporated territory within the boundaries of a township with a
population of at least five thousand, and which is located in a
county with a population of at least two hundred thousand and not
more than four hundred thousand, or located within the boundaries of
a limited home rule township that adopted a resolution under section
5709.73 of the Revised Code before January 1, 1995, and which is
located in a county with a population of more than four hundred
thousand, the board of township trustees of the township;
(5)
In the event that more than one body meets the definitions set forth
in divisions (F)(1) to (4) of this section, "organizational
board of commissioners" means the organizational board of
commissioners with which the original petition was filed or another
body meeting the definitions set forth in divisions (F)(1) to (4) of
this section appointed in a resolution adopted by the organizational
board of commissioners with which the original petition was filed.
(G)
"Land acquisition" means the acquisition of real property
and interests in real property as part of a new community development
program.
(H)
"Land development" means the process of clearing and
grading land, making, installing, or constructing water distribution
systems, sewers, sewage collection systems, steam, gas, and electric
lines, roads, streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, storm drainage
facilities, and other installations or work, whether within or
without the new community district, and the construction of community
facilities.
(I)
"Community facilities" means all real property, buildings,
structures, or other facilities, including related fixtures,
equipment, and furnishings, to be owned, operated, financed,
constructed, and maintained under this chapter or in furtherance of
community activities, whether within or without the new community
district, including public, community, village, neighborhood, or town
buildings, centers and plazas, auditoriums, child care centers,
recreation halls, educational facilities, health care facilities
including hospital facilities as defined in section 140.01 of the
Revised Code, telecommunications facilities, including all facilities
necessary to provide telecommunications service as defined in section
4927.01 of the Revised Code, recreational facilities, natural
resource facilities, including parks and other open space land, lakes
and streams, cultural facilities, community streets and off-street
parking facilities, pathway and bikeway systems, pedestrian
underpasses and overpasses, lighting facilities, design amenities,
multi-family rental housing, office buildings, hotel and hospitality
facilities, retail buildings and facilities,
or other community facilities, and buildings needed in connection
with water supply or sewage disposal installations, or energy
facilities including those for renewable or sustainable energy
sources, and steam, gas, or electric lines or installation.
(J)
"Cost" as applied to a new community development program
means all costs related to land acquisition and land development, the
acquisition, construction, maintenance, and operation of community
facilities and offices of the community authority, and of providing
furnishings and equipment therefor, financing charges including
interest prior to and during construction and for the duration of the
new community development program, planning expenses, engineering
expenses, administrative expenses including working capital, and all
other expenses necessary and incident to the carrying forward of the
new community development program.
(K)
"Income source" means any and all sources of income to the
community authority, including community development charges of which
the new community authority is the beneficiary as provided in section
349.07 of the Revised Code, rentals, user fees and other charges
received by the new community authority, any gift or grant received,
any moneys received from any funds invested by or on behalf of the
new community authority, and proceeds from the sale or lease of land
and community facilities.
(L)
"Community development charge" means:
(1)
A dollar amount which shall be determined on the basis of the
assessed valuation of real property or interests in real property in
a new community district, the income of the residents of such
property subject to such charge under section 349.07 of the Revised
Code, if such property is devoted to residential uses or to the
profits, gross receipts, or other revenues of any business including,
but not limited to, rentals received from leases of real property
located in the district, a uniform or other fee on each parcel of
such real property in a new community district, or any combination of
the foregoing bases.
(2)
If a new community authority imposes a community development charge
determined on the basis of rentals received from leases of real
property, improvements of any real property located in the new
community district and subject to that charge may not be exempted
from taxation under section 5709.40, 5709.41, 5709.45, 5709.48,
5709.73, or 5709.78 of the Revised Code.
(M)
"Proximate community" means the following:
(1)
For a new community district other than a new community district
described in division (M)(2), (3), or (4) of this section, any city
that, as of the date of filing of the petition under section 349.03
of the Revised Code, is the city with the greatest population located
in the county in which the proposed new community district is
located, is the city with the greatest population located in an
adjoining county if any portion of such city is within five miles of
any part of the boundaries of such district, or exercises
extraterritorial subdivision authority under section 711.09 of the
Revised Code with respect to any part of such district.
(2)
A municipal corporation in which, at the time of filing the petition
under section 349.03 of the Revised Code, any portion of the proposed
new community district is located.
(3)
For a new community district other than a new community district
described in division (M)(2) or (4) of this section, if at the time
of filing the petition under section 349.03 of the Revised Code, more
than one-half of the proposed district is contained within a joint
economic development district created under sections 715.70 to 715.83
of the Revised Code, the township containing the greatest portion of
the territory of the joint economic development district.
(4)
For a new community district other than a new community district
described in division (M)(2) or (3) of this section, if at the time
of filing the petition under section 349.03 of the Revised Code the
proposed new community district is comprised entirely of
unincorporated territory within the boundaries of a township with a
population of at least five thousand, and which is located in a
county with a population of at least two hundred thousand and not
more than four hundred thousand, or located within the boundaries of
a limited home rule township that adopted a resolution under section
5709.73 of the Revised Code before January 1, 1995, and which is
located in a county with a population of more than four hundred
thousand, the township in which the proposed new community district
is located.
(N)
"Community activities" means cultural, educational,
governmental, recreational, residential, industrial, commercial,
distribution and research activities, or any combination thereof.
Section
2.
That
existing section 349.01 of the Revised Code is hereby repealed.