Columbiana city has rolled out the welcome mat to development and growth by offering a significant tax abatement to residential owners who build in the Community Reinvestment area or CRA. City Manager Lance Willard said, "If you were to build a house in town right now within 2019, you would get a 15 year 100 percent tax abatement."

Willard explained, "Commercial and Industrial developers are also being offered tax abatements. But they must build within the Columbiana city limits. KDC is finishing a multi-million dollar project and has submitted plans for another, but this abatement must receive approval since it extends beyond ten years. A phase two part of the project is worth about $4.8 million of investment, and it involves 12 triplexes. KDC also developed Villas at Charleston in Columbiana."

The 12-year 50 % real estate tax abatement was approved in a special vote by the Columbiana School Board Tuesday evening. City council voted to approve the tax abatement for KDC but must have a second reading in around two weeks.

Columbiana's School Superintendent Donald Mook said, "The district was part of the negotiation process. In this case, you have a nice opportunity to work with the city to bring in an investor who is going to invest $4.8 million into our community to attract, I believe, 32 potential families. So it's a win-win. It's a real positive. We have a board member who is on the negotiating committee, along with city council members. I think this works pretty good for everybody. For our school district, the only increases in revenues we get are from new construction. We don't see a lot of increases from the state, so we rely heavily on the local property tax. In this case for them to try and attract people to our community is a real positive."