Boise City’s Urban Renewal Agency, Capital City Development Corporation, has been involved in both the failed Ada County Courthouse financing scheme as well as the failed $136 million University Place fiasco. <\/p>\n
Idaho Code allows cities and counties to form Urban Renewal Agencies. One or more urban renewal districts are then created. While revitalizing blighted areas sounds good on the surface, let\u2019s take a look at the hidden cost to taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Urban Renewal Agencies (URA\u2019s) obtain revenue through two means: they sell bonds, incurring long-term indebtedness without taxpayer approval, and they collect property tax dollars. <\/p>\n
According to the Idaho Constitution, Article VIII, Section 3, \u201cNo county, city, board of education, or school district, or other subdivision of the state, shall incur any indebtedness, or liability, in any manner, or for any purpose, exceeding in that year, the income and revenue provided for it for such year, without the assent of two[-]thirds (2\/3) of the qualified electors thereof voting at an election to be held for that purpose\u2026.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Idaho Supreme Court is now involved in determining whether URA\u2019s have been violating the Constitution. The underlying issue in Ken Hart v. City of Rexburg, an Idaho Supreme Court case to be heard in November, is whether URA\u2019s are city agencies. URA\u2019s and the cities claim these creations of the cities are not part of the cities and are, therefore, exempt from Article VIII, Section 3. <\/p>\n
Keep in mind, a city council creates the URA, they appoint the board members, can act as the board, and have the power to dissolve the URA with a simple vote of council members. It is my belief that URA\u2019s are indeed part of the city and should therefore be subject to the Constitutional requirement of 2\/3 voter approval prior to the sale of bonds. <\/p>\n
Property taxes on all improvements and appreciation within an urban renewal district go to the URA, rather than to the city, county, ambulance district, highway district, etc. <\/p>\n
Here are the problems with this whole \u201cfree money\u201d scenario: new buildings require services such as roads, fire and police protection, paramedics, etc., yet the property tax dollars collected on the assessed value of those facilities are going to the Urban Renewal Agency rather than to the agencies that are providing the necessary services. <\/p>\n
Skimming these property tax dollars off the top for the URA leaves the tax burden to the widow on a fixed income, and the single parent trying to make ends meet, to provide services for the developed property within the urban renewal district. Property owners outside the district are negatively impacted, even though they receive no benefits from the urban renewal district. <\/p>\n
In addition, business owners within the urban renewal districts receive an unfair competitive advantage. They do not have to provide their own parking, landscaping, etc., because all of these perks are provided by the URA\u2019s. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s high time for the Idaho Legislature to revisit urban renewal law in order to reign in these rogue agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boise City’s Urban Renewal Agency, Capital City Development Corporation, has been involved in both the failed Ada County Courthouse financing scheme as well as the failed $136 million University Place fiasco. Idaho Code allows cities and counties to form Urban Renewal Agencies. One or more urban renewal districts are then created. While revitalizing blighted areas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","czr-hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharonu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}