Cuyahoga County Council Member Michael J. Houser Sr. didn’t like it that the county could give financial assistance to a private project but not require the developer to do anything to directly help residents.
“I am a believer that if you are getting millions of dollars in tax money, that you should give back to the public in some kind of way,” he said.
Houser sponsored an ordinance that passed this summer that requires just that for projects receiving at least $1 million in county financial assistance.
The goal is not to hold up any development. We love development in Cuyahoga County. The goal is to make sure our community gets tangible resources and things back to it for the taxpayers’ money that we are investing in these projects.”
Cuyahoga Council Member Michael J. Houser Sr.
Earlier this month, the county’s new Community Benefits Advisory Committee met for the first time to review and recommend community benefits for a project. Council must vote on the committee’s recommendations for an agreement – a legally binding pact between the county and a developer, business or nonprofit.
In Cuyahoga County, community benefits can mean many things, ranging from including affordable housing units in a market-rate development to green space and parks. Other potential community benefits outlined in the ordinance include creating childcare facilities or making commitments to fund affordable childcare.
Additional options include contracting and subcontracting work for local businesses, workforce development, mentorship and training partnerships. Cleveland also has a community benefits program, and some developers will have agreements with both the city and the county. Sometimes the advisory committee’s duties will include deciding whether to incorporate the city’s agreement into the one the county has with a developer or come up with a new one.
When he first proposed the advisory committee, Houser said some of his colleagues and others were concerned that another layer of approval would delay projects.
“The goal is not to hold up any development,” he said. “We love development in Cuyahoga County. The goal is to make sure our community gets tangible resources and things back to it for the taxpayers’ money that we are investing in these projects.”
Cuyahoga County doesn’t want to rubber stamp Cleveland’s community benefits agreements
The advisory committee’s Nov. 2 meeting included maiden voyage tasks such as adopting bylaws. But it also reviewed its first project as it met in a committee room at Cuyahoga County administrative headquarters. Representatives from Flannery | Georgalis LLC addressed the committee.
The law firm received a $1.24 million county loan to assist in redeveloping a 120+-year-old building on West 25th Street for its headquarters. The business wanted to incorporate its community benefits agreement with Cleveland into the one with the county, Rich Morehouse, a lawyer representing the firm, told the committee. Essentially, his client wanted the agreement to do double-duty to meet the county’s requirement. The request would end up sparking debate among committee members as to whether the committee should approve agreements developers have with Cleveland.
The law firm’s agreement with the city includes hiring city residents for the project and using Cleveland-based small businesses and women-owned or minority-owned businesses, he said. The agreement also includes using Job Corps participants as pre-apprentices and high school students as interns.
“We are actually going to overachieve on this project,” Morehouse said, adding that a Cleveland business and women-owned businesses were being used in key roles on the project. “We’re putting our best foot forward, going hard after it on this project.”
Cleveland’s community benefits policy served as inspiration for Houser to propose one for the county. The Cleveland resident represents District 10, which includes Collinwood, Glenville and other East Side neighborhoods, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, University Heights and Bratenahl. He consulted Tyson Mitchell, director of Cleveland’s Office of Equal Opportunity, which oversees the city’s program. The advisory committee sets the county apart from the city’s community benefits program. Mitchell’s office negotiates the agreements, which then go to Cleveland City Council for approval.
Advisory committee members said that they didn’t want the county to rubber stamp agreements from Cleveland.
Department of Development Director Paul Herdeg, a committee member, said that an agreement a developer struck with Cleveland should be considered on its merits.
“The fact that Cleveland has an established process should give us some comfort that there’s been thought given to what the benefit should be,” he said. “But I do not think this commission wants to ever say we’ll simply adopt what another city has adopted.”
After reviewing the Cleveland agreement, County Fiscal Officer Michael Chambers, a committee member, wondered if the county needed to “beef ours up,” which could include adding additional benefits or being more specific with existing ones. Cleveland often puts performance targets in its agreements. For example, developers commonly have to hire Cleveland residents for 20% of the construction worker hours. They frequently have to agree to 30% of their subcontractors being Cleveland small businesses, minority-owned businesses or women-owned businesses.
There is a reason the county’s community benefits ordinance is not as detailed as the city’s, Houser told Signal Cleveland in an interview before the meeting. For example, the decision was made not to include any reference to minority-owned or women-owned businesses because of the Trump administration’s anti-Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies. He said it was “intentional because of everything that’s going on at the federal level right now.”
But he said this could change.
“We can always revisit this ordinance and add or take away different things,” Houser told Signal Cleveland.
Back at the meeting, the advisory committee deliberated over whether to let Cleveland’s agreement do double-duty. Morehouse and Mary Champa, director of HR and administration at Flannery | Georgalis, who also addressed the committee, anxiously awaited the vote.
Would their project become the first the advisory committee ever approved?
Cuyahoga County gives $1 million-plus in financial help to several private projects a year
The seven-member advisory committee, by ordinance, is primarily composed of county officials. They include Houser, Chambers, Herdeg, Director of Housing and Community Development Anthony Scott and Sabrina Roberts, a senior advisor to County Executive Chris Ronayne. Members from the community include business owner Adrian Maldonado and Tania Menesse, CEO and president of Towards Employment, a nonprofit that helps to find work for hard-to-place job seekers, including “second-chance workers,” or those impacted by the criminal justice system.
“We’re heavily invested in ensuring that there are opportunities for low-income residents and second-chance workers to be part of construction projects in the county,” she said.
The committee will likely have several projects in the next year or so to review, if the last few years serve as an indication. For example, below are the last five projects that would have had community benefits agreements because they received more than $1 million in financial assistance from the county.
These are the last five projects in Cuyahoga County that would have had community benefits agreements if the ordinance had been in place, Herdeg said:
- Famous Supply in Maple Heights – Received a $2 million county loan to renovate a vacant commercial building to use as their distribution center. The loan was made in 2024 and the money paid out in 2025.
- Former Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights – Received a $2 million county loan in 2025 to renovate the building for a branch of Oberlin College, office space and community space.
- Birthing Beautiful Communities – Received a $2 million loan in 2026 for construction of a birth center, also known as a birthing center, in Cleveland.
- Hikma Pharmaceuticals in Bedford – Received a $2 million county grant in 2026 to renovate a vacant building into a high-tech pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.
- Erieview Tower – Received a $2 county million loan in 2026 to renovate a building into a luxury hotel, which is part of a larger downtown Cleveland project that includes luxury apartments, office space, parking, dining and entertainment spaces.
Birthing Beautiful Communities and Erieview Tower have community benefits agreements with Cleveland, according to city documents.
The advisory committee ended debate about whether the county should accept Flannery | Georgalis’ proposal to incorporate the law firm’s . The committee voted unanimously to incorporate Cleveland’s agreement into the one the law firm has with the city. However, the county would do its own oversight regarding whether the project was meeting the terms of the agreement. It doesn’t want to be a rubber stamp for agreements made with Cleveland.
Morehouse and Champa were relieved. They had feared that the committee would require that a new agreement be negotiated.
“I think it’s positive that the county saw the good work that was done with the city and adopted it,” he said. “I think it’s good government.”
