[MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08

[Geoff Badenoch]

When an urban renewal district is created by the City, the taxable value of
the property in the district is calculated and "frozen."  During the life of
the district, any increase in the ACTUAL taxable value is captured and
segregated to be used for urban renewal activities in the district.  Those
funds are typically known as tax increment funds.  Now-and this is the
important point that many people miss-in an urban renewal district, no
property owner's taxes are reduced or frozen because of the district.  As
their property values rise over time due to reinvestment and redevelopment
and through the state mandated reappraisals, their property taxes go up just
like any other property taxpayer.

 

Urban renewal activities typically involve making improvements to public
infrastructure in conjunction with private reinvestment.  State urban
renewal law permits use of tax increment funds for, among other things, the
construction of sewers, sidewalks, streets, off street parking, planning,
site clearance and demolition.  Those arrangements are sometimes referred to
as "public/private partnerships."  In return for the public investment,
other public benefits result from the private investment. Among those
benefits are improved, safer urban environment, increased tax base, new
jobs, blight clearance etc. 

 

That's the simple explanation.  There is a lot more that can be said about
urban renewal districts.

 

Geoff Badenoch

 

-----Original Message-----
From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Derek Goldman
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 1:18 PM
To: Jason Wiener; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08

 

re, the proposed urban renewal district for the Hip Strip:
Can someone please explain to me how this works? if so designated, would
funds for "renewal" projects come from general tax revenues? Would these
funds only apply to projects on public property (like sidewallks) or could
they fund improvements to someone's privately-owned commercial property? ie:
does this amount to a public subsidy of highly-valued private commercial
property?
(no offense to the Hip Strippers-- I love that neighborhood! Just concerned
about what is the best use of city funds during times of a budget shortfall,
and whether this is the most-blighted neighborhood). --Derek 

 

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Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:56:15 -0600
From: JWiener at ci.missoula.mt.us
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08

Bob is on vacation once more. I will be filling in.

 

Public Health and Safety started off the day with an update from the police
department. The session focused mostly on the Hells Angels weekend. Chief
Muir said that the police "could not have planned for [the weekend] to go as
smoothly  as it did." Still, the visit cost Missoula an extra $93,000 in
overtime and other costs; savings of $46,000 from the budgeted amount were
realized by scheduling training and the like for times when officers were
not patrolling. Chief Muir  pointed out that the overall volume of criminal
activity in town went down during the weekend, which just goes to show that
having an extra 60 some police officers on duty reduces crime. The guiding
philosophy of the police during the weekend seemed like to be harm
reduction. Other than responding to specific complaints on incidents, the
police didn't engage our visitors for surveillance and interdiction. There
were federal officers around for those purposes and they were in town and at
the Testicle Festival. The main criminal activity seems to be some drug
arrests in conjunction with a reported sexual assault (still under
investigation) and a concealed weapons charge. To keep the police presence
from being overwhelming foot and mobile patrols were limited to 32 officers
in downtown at one time. Chief Muir reported no complaints about too much
police over the weekend.

 

We also looked at preliminary racial profiling numbers, just the number of
stops by demographic group. A citations versus warnings analysis is still
being calculated. The counts were required by legislation from the last
state legislative session. The results basically follow the population
distribution except for African Americans, who were pulled over at a rate
four times greater than their representation in the Census population. Chief
Muir speculated that the Census data inaccurately represented the number of
African Americans in town or that their representation in populations just
passing through, but not living in town, was high enough to explain the
difference (160 stops of African Americans vs about 40 that would have been
predicted). Chief Muir added that if those stops yield high warning rates,
as opposed to citations, it might be a sign that the disproportionate stops
are less warranted, which would be a troubling set of events. At any rate
over 90% of the stops were Caucasians, like our population.

 

The Chief closed with a warning that the department will be short staffed
and might not meet all its benchmarks. Right now, they are authorized to
have 102 officers but there are 4 vacancies and 7 officers on limited or
light duty (2 permanently). Coming soon, a couple police officers will be
deployed to Iraq, which will further reduce our local force and hamper the
Chief's ambition to do problem-oriented policing, which is aimed at root
causes rather than criminal behaviors. This wasn't, he said, a plea for more
personnel but a warning that performance might lag because of the shortages.

 

In PAZ, talked about a conflict in the calculation of height regulations on
hillsides. The issue arises because of the discrepancy between the natural
slope of a hill and the finished slope, after grading and all. All parties
seemed to feel like the issue was being addressed in the zoning rewrite and
that there was not sufficient urgency to justify amending the existing
ordinance ahead of the rewrite, provided that is successful, which we all
hope it will be.

 

In A&F, we took up a request from commercial property owners in the vicinity
of the Hip Strip to go looking for blight, which would be the first step
toward creating an urban renewal district for the Hip Strip. There wasn't a
heck of a lot of concern that there won't be opportunities to find blight;
see the memo for some suggestions from the neighborhood at
ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-07-21/Referrals/HipStr
ipRequest.pdf. Some of the impetus for the request seemed to be coming from
projects in the planning phases that would require structured parking. I
have a financial concerns with putting growth in urban renewal districts
since the property tax cap makes it so the only way to keep revenues in line
with inflation is by adding new property to the tax rolls. If development is
happening anyway, we would be causing future budget issues. Ellen Buchanan
pointed out the URD revenue can and is often used for public works projects
that would otherwise need to be paid for from the general fund so the URD
can function complimentarily rather than competitively. One of the
catalyzing projects is a proposed redo of the Penwell building, the white
three story number on the corner of 3rd and Higgins. The owners may request
rezoning to add height. While this is an accepted practice in historic
restoration, one person from the neighborhood appeared to register
opposition. I think we got some foreshadowing of some resistance from the
neighborhood to increased heights and more urban character that might come
with redevelopment. We decided to proceed with the blight study since it
doesn't commit us to a cause of action but the vote was not unanimous and
the full Council won't consider the question until August 25 so Ellen can go
on vacation next week.

 

After lunch, we returned to the budget. Because the state has told us that
we have grown considerably more slowly than we thought based on building
permits and because insurance premiums went up significantly, we are on the
wrong side of a balanced budget right now, mostly since the tax base ended
up being smaller than anticipated. The mayor's budget included a 3.5%
increase in property taxes--1.92% for a general obligation bond approved for
the Miller Creek fire station and the balance to cover inflation and new
budget requests. The administration said that raising taxes by 4.82% instead
of 3.5% would cover the difference, if that is the direction we decide to
go. Since city taxes are about 30% of a property tax bill, the increase to
what a person pays would be about 1.4% with the voted debt service for the
fire station or .88% without that debt service. The total cost would be
something like $26 for a $225,000 home; the additional bump would be $7 on
that home.

 

Mentioning taxes produced some talk reflecting deep-seated angst about
paying for city services. Once the venting was done, we decided to proceed
by deciding exactly what needs to be funded and then figure out where that
puts us relative to the need for additional tax revenue rather than starting
with a revenue number. Next week in committee each Council member will bring
forward specific suggestions, which were not bountiful during committee, and
we'll seek to whittle our costs down to the bone before returning to the
revenue issue. We did dispense with some outstanding expense items, deciding
that a raise for the municipal judge and small additional requests from the
city band ($1000) and the Missoula Cultural Council ($2500) were not
feasible in the current climate. Marilyn also removed her request for an
energy conservation officer, which wasn't in the mayor's budget but seems
necessary if we are going to seriously reduce the city's energy consumption
and CO2 emissions. That's unfortunate because it is a position that could
pay for itself with even small efficiencies. Stacy succeeded in persuading
us to add $35,000 to the neighborhood parks maintenance fund (now at
$125,000 rather than the $250,000 planned for last year) so we can start
knocking out bathroom, lighting and trail upgrades that will need to precede
replacing playground equipment and the like. We will have to figure out how
to finance that increase along with whatever else makes it through
committee.

 

We have until mid-September to pass a budget and we'll be spending a few
more weeks to wrap it up, I expect.

 

Thanks for your interest,

J.

 

*******

Jason Wiener, Alderman, Ward One

1238 Jackson St.

Missoula, MT 59802

               (406) 542-3232        

jwiener at ci.missoula.mt.us

 

 

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