Chester’s bankruptcy solution may actually come from offering tax breaks to investing developers and property owners, an idea that has the support of the city’s mayor-elect Stefan Roots and the city council.

The council has approved a pilot program that will offer a 10-year tax abatement to developers and property owners in an effort to upgrade Chester’s aging housing stock, writes Anthony R. Wood for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Roots hopes the abatements will encourage new home building and rehab projects and start others already planned.

If the program doesn’t produce results after three years, it will be scrapped, he said.

“We can’t give away the store right now when we’re in bankruptcy,” he said.

Meanwhile, state receiver Michael Doweary, who filed for bankruptcy on behalf of Chester a year ago, looks forward to working with Roots as he searches for every dollar.

“There’s no get-rich-quick scheme,” Roots said. “We need something bright, new, and shiny for Chester, and it doesn’t have to be industry on the waterfront.”

The mayor-elect has strongly opposed a proposed liquified natural gas plant for Chester.

Find out more about the political landscape in Chester and about a Chester bankruptcy solution in a tax abatement pilot program for investing developers in The Philadelphia Inquirer.