The City Council put off a decision Tuesday on whether to spend $500,000 to hire a consultant to study increasing the limit on how much tax revenue downtown San Diego’s redevelopment arm can collect.

Proponents argue that lifting the Centre City Development Corp.’s tax increment limit is necessary to finance the continued redevelopment of downtown San Diego.

Others would like to see CCDC dissolved and the money be funneled into the city’s general fund to pay for a broader range of services.

The process of lifting the cap would take 15-18 months. The preliminary step in that process involves hiring a consultant to study which areas of downtown remain economically or physically blighted.

Seeking more information, the City Council voted unanimously to put off a decision on the consultant to June 22.

Council members sought to expand the scope of the proposed study to include impacts on other communities in San Diego, parks, homelessness and the link to a proposed new downtown stadium for the San Diego Chargers.

“What I am hearing is a general theme that perhaps we don’t have enough information today to make a determination,” Councilman Todd Gloria told his colleagues before calling for the continuance.

CCDC’s current tax increment cap is set at $2.9 billion, which will be reached by 2023, officials with the agency said.

The looming cap could potentially make it more difficult to move ahead with several large projects now being proposed, including the Chargers stadium, a new City Hall complex and expanding the Convention Center.

According to Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who represents downtown, there are roughly 70 outstanding projects that are unfunded in the area because of the cap on the agency’s tax increment, including affordable housing developments, new fire stations, the revitalization of C Street and additional parks.

This story was written and edited by City News Service.