Urban Renewal Authority Policy Changes Merit Greater Public Discussion

Kaufman & Robinson, Jax Mercantile, North College Marketplace, Valley Steel, & Rocky Mountain Innosphere have become hallmarks of North College, and have become invaluable assets for Fort Collins thanks to their recent construction and improvements. Each of these entities received Urban Renewal Authority (URA) support via Tax Increment Financing (TIF), and not a single one of these improvements would have occurred under changes currently being proposed to URA policies and procedures. In fact, only one URA supported project to date would meet these new standards.

The City of Fort Collins’ URA Board, or City Council, is poised to update the policies governing the program for the second time in less than 24 months. According to City Staff, the policies are being updated to include an updated mission statement, greater alignment with current city plans, address affordable housing, and to require green standards beyond code minimums.

As controversial as URAs have been in other cities in Colorado, most would agree that Fort Collins has been very prudent in using its URA program for the stated purposes and benefits; elimination of blight, financing projects that otherwise wouldn’t occur, and for an increased tax base.

While many aspects of the proposed updates are grounded in commonly accepted purposes and benefits for TIF dollars, there are several others that seem to be establishing an unprecedented purpose for the program and merit greater public input prior to adoption. Several of the specific changes that are a cause for concern have been asked for by a single member of the URA Board, and have gone unannounced until the last couple of weeks.

These proposed changes would link the potential for receiving URA funding to costly environmental requirements beyond the City’s code, like silver LEED certification, or in some cases would lead to additional expenditures for items unrelated to items being funded by public dollars.

For example, if an applicant were requesting funds for sidewalk improvements in front of their business it would trigger an expensive environmental assessment on their current building. Any items identified as having a less than two year rate of return would be required to be completed in order to receive URA dollars.

Our concern is that this new environmental focus for the program departs from, or may even undermine, the primary purpose of a URA program potentially rendering it unusable by small businesses. Moreover, it may serve as an additional hurdle for some of our community’s key economic redevelopment opportunities in the Midtown and Mall area.

To be clear FCBR is, and has been, supportive of many standards geared toward improving our community’s green standards including the Green Building Codes passed last year and the upcoming Planned Development Overlay District concept that incentivizes various green practices.

That said, FCBR would like to ask that the URA Board delay its decision on the proposed URA policy changes beyond the currently scheduled date of March 20^th in order to better understand the impacts to the URA program and to gather greater public input on the proposed changes and purpose of the program.