[MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08

[Eric Taylor]

So, with the "hip strip" URD there is a chance, at the Penwell building
for instance, that the URD could aid the property owner in converting
the property into high income condos. Off-street parking requirements,
are one of the issues the owner's of the Penwell would face with a
conversion. 

There
was some discussion in the Missoula BID meetings (available on line),
about the owner of the Penwell, considering a conversion to condos.

Condo
residents would probably have more money to spend in the business
district, for some that would be an advantage. Some lower income folks
would be displaced by the loss of affordable retals, but that should
not be a concern, or should it?

What if people become displaced
and are unable to find affordable housing? Our community's point in
time homeless surveys have shown the situation in Missoula is getting
worse for those living on the edge. One of the possible causes is the
lack of affordable housing, combined with low paying jobs. Many of
these low wage jobs are service jobs. Many of these are located in the
urban core. 

Statistics compiled by the Missoula BID, Downtown
Ambassadors (also available on line), show a rise in problem behaviors
between the haves and the have-nots downtown. Will further
gentrification and reduction of affordable rental units help, or hasten
the conflicts?

Affordable housing, livable wages, poverty
issues, and services for the disadvantaged could all be part of the
Missoula BID's Downtown Master Plan. I wonder why this is not the case?


I think if we added these things to the master plan we  could
create a Downtown environment that welcomes people from all walks of
life.



Here is an interesting article:

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695244577,00.html



Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:32:07 -0600
From: jmcgrath at missoulahousing.org
To: derekmgold at hotmail.com; jwiener at ci.missoula.mt.us; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08




























I’ll take a stab. I’m sure
others will chime in if I misstate things. 

 

When an area is designated an urban
renewal district, all the properties continue to pay the property taxes they
are currently assessed. However, as property values increase (presumably due to
redevelopment activities) and so do taxes, the “increment” –i.e.
the additional taxes above the starting point—are set aside in the redevelopment
fund. 

 

Properties pay taxes to various
jurisdictions – the city, the county, the state, the schools, the
university, the Mountain Line transit district. Even though the city may be the
creator and controller of the redevelopment district, all tax increments feed
the fund. And all jurisdictions lose the increment for their general funds
during the life of the district. 

 

So yes, the funds come from the general
funds of the various bodies (only about one quarter will be from the city), but
only the amount that would have been added to the general fund due to increased
value since the beginning of the district. If the value in the district does
not increase, then there is no fund. The MRA’s second district (URDII) –
the one the Champion site is in—grew very little for many years.

 

There are specific rules about what the
funds can be used for, but they are most often used to assist private
development activities. The reason for this is built into the logic of how the
redevelopment fund works: the funding should be targeted to make property
values in the district increase, and to combat “blight.” Our MRA
has been more generous than most in committing funds to public works that pay
no taxes –like parks—on the theory that they help increase overall values.
But more likely they will go to tax-paying projects.

 

Yes it is a subsidy to private and usually
commercial property. 

 









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 



 







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/HipStripRequest.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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