Redevelopment Commission To Expand TIF Districts
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 4/20/08 @ 10:43 pm - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
As noted elsewhere in the blogosphere ( here and here), at Monday’s meeting the Redevelopment Commission will vote on holding a public hearing in regards to expanding three of the city’s TIF districts . As someone who is extremely cautious about TIF expansion I was obviously alarmed when I saw this on the agenda last week so I called Greg Leatherman, executive director of redevelopment, to ask him what was up.
Leatherman explained that under the new state law (HB1001) TIF districts must actually touch the projects they are serving and this expansion would simply be to insure that the commission is fully compliant with that law. He told me specifically that they anticipated capturing no new revenue from the expansion - this was simply a measure they were taking to legally use existing funds that were already earmarked for specific projects.
To complicate matters a little more they are having to change which TIF will pay for the Jefferson-Taylor project. Originally the airport TIF was to pay for part of this project but since it doesn’t actually encapsulate the project area it cannot legally be used. Therefore they are wanting to expand the Jefferson Pointe TIF and use money from that to pay for the project.
I was told the $4 Million in the airport TIF is now being considered for a public utilities project around the airport and that Ted Nitza would be describing that project at Monday’s meeting. Readers might remember that Nitza gave the devastatingly effective Aqua Indiana presentation before city council highlighting the reasons why the city needed to take over the utility…
(Photo by Stephen Parker of AroundFortWayne)
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Why don’t they just simplify things by declaring the entire city to be one huge TIF district. That way they can fund any project they like without worrying about it’s location.