One of the wrinkles in the downtown Bloomington Tax Increment Financing District the city council has just created is that if it doesn't perform, half the property tax money generated will go back to taxing bodies like Bloomington schools.
City Manager Jeff Jurgens said the standard included in the intergovernmental agreement [IGA] is a $5 million increase in property value within the district over a decade — even though the value will rise naturally by some amount without any new development.
"The parties believe that the $5 million and the other numbers put into that IGA was fair and would be a good barometer of whether the TIF district is working or not," Jurgens said on WGLT's Sound Ideas.
Jurgens pointed out one of the reasons for the TIF is that property values downtown have not been increasing at the same rate seen in other parts of the city. The city also will consider whether new downtown development creates more student enrollment in District 87 that needs to be supported by property taxes. He said the district will have metrics and formulas to measure any increase in students created by new downtown development.
“State law already requires certain reimbursement if new students are added into the TIF district," said Jurgens. "The agreement we entered into with the district puts additional clarity around that, and the school district will keep track of whether students are added into that TIF area.”
A previous agreement with District 87 for a different area of the city included direct sharing of revenues from the TIF with Bloomington schools for improvements to school buildings within the TIF. That was to redevelop the moribund K-mart Plaza into a fresher retail area that today includes Dick’s Sporting Goods and other stores. The downtown TIF does not include such provisions. Jurgens said the two instances should not be directly compared.
“It's a different area. It’s a different TIF. There are different players at the table and this is the agreement we came up with this time, something we believe was fair for all parties. We believe at the end of the day, the agreement would be fair to all taxing bodies” said Jurgens.
Housing shortage
The Bloomington City Council has set a direction to stimulate housing development in the community by agreeing to create a standard incentive package for developers. Details though, won't come until early in the fall, said Jurgens.
"What we want to make sure though is that the incentives that we come forward with are financially feasible for the city, but also that it will actually make a difference and have an impact on developers," he said.
Other elements of the effort to fill the housing gap include enhancing housing rehabilitation in blighted areas, focusing on intergovernmental collaboration, and completing a review of zoning and subdivision codes.
Jurgens said the city will likely outsource the code and zoning review.
"I think that will help us make progress in a more timely fashion,” he said. “There are a lot of moving parts, but I think we divide and conquer on this.”
Project labor agreements
After about a year of talks among labor, developers, and the city, the council has signed off on project labor agreements on public works contracts that cost more than $50,000.
Opponents of such agreements tend to claim they increase costs that taxpayers must then bear. Jurgens said he has not heard of specific evidence that supports that assertion.
“What I can say is the ordinance we passed does provide that the city council can waive the requirement if the costs are too high,” said Jurgens. “We will have language that will allow a bidder on a public works project to request a waiver and we would have to evaluate that at that time.”
He said the city is still working through the details of the criteria it will use to evaluate whether a requested waiver is reasonable.
Supporters of project labor agreements have said they support a stable workforce, increase safety on job sites, and benefit local workers. Jurgens said the measure takes effect Sept. 1, so there is time to include the language in bid and procurement documents.
The city modeled its rules on ones used in the city of Springfield.
“It was very important to labor. It was very important to developers in our community. We needed to have a clear path as to what was going to be required for prevailing wages, project labor agreements, apprenticeships, all those types of things. This gives a clear road map as to what those expectations are,” said Jurgens.
Downtown survey
Recently, the city collected recommendations from downtown business and property owners about nuisance behavior. Jurgens said staff sent results to the police department on Wednesday. Police will develop an action plan to address some of the concerns raised.
“A couple of potentials are an increased police presence in our downtown, more visible law enforcement," he said. "We already have a variety of public safety cameras in our downtown. One of the ideas we have talked about is ensuring those cameras are more visible, so it is clear there are cameras and people are on video as a hopeful deterrent to bad behavior.”
He said the city received about 69 responses and the city is happy with that number.
