She and Williams both mentioned Detroit’s community benefit agreement ordinance as a model. Neighborhood groups and developers could negotiate a range of goals: affordable housing minimums, living wage requirements or preferential hiring for neighborhood residents.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, but it allows us basically to make sure the community has input in it,” Green said.

A key debate will be the threshold triggering such arrangements. That could be based on project size or the amount of development incentives offered, Green said. But a citywide ordinance laying out the parameters is important, rather than arbitrarily deciding to incorporate a community benefit agreement, as the city did with the soccer stadium.

“I think there has to be consistency,” Green said. “We can’t say we’re going to do it for this project and not that. There has to be some kind of threshold so everyone’s on the same playing field.”

Democratic mayoral nominee Lyda Krewson, widely expected to win the April 4 general election, said she does not object to an ordinance setting a threshold to trigger community benefit agreement negotiations.