{"id":94649,"date":"2019-04-12T19:54:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T01:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-encourages-resident-led-redevelopment-approach\/"},"modified":"2019-04-12T19:54:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T01:54:47","slug":"durango-encourages-resident-led-redevelopment-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-encourages-resident-led-redevelopment-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango encourages resident-led redevelopment approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango officials hope residents will come together to petition City Council to encourage redevelopment with a Urban Renewal Authority.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango voters worried about the condition of a neighborhood and how it may affect property values have an avenue through the city to encourage economic redevelopment through private-public partnerships.<\/p>\n

Communities that want redevelopment in blighted neighborhoods have an opportunity to organize and petition city government to offer financial incentives to developers to offset the high costs of development, city staff said at Tuesday\u2019s City Council study session.<\/p>\n

The concept is called an Urban Renewal Authority \u2013 a resident-initiated, city-run initiative to reinvest sales and property tax revenue increases brought by redevelopment into a specific geographic region to help developers build public amenities required by city codes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to make property owners partners \u2013 give them the opportunity and vision. This is an opportunity for them,\u201d said Councilor Dean Brookie.<\/p>\n

Simply put, whatever tax revenue over an average from neighborhoods participating in the URA that come after redevelopment would be reinvested in the same geographic region to encourage more redevelopment.<\/p>\n

Reinvestment of increased tax revenues through redevelopment incentives is called tax increment financing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a property redevelops, they often have to build new curb, gutter and sidewalks, a simple example of something that could be reimbursed (by a URA),\u201d said city planner Scott Shine. \u201cIf we have this tool, we can also say, \u2018You have a great project, but this area needs a gathering space, so developer you build it and we can reimburse you from (tax increment financing).\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Establishing a URA is not an approval for higher taxes, Shine said.<\/p>\n

URAs establish an Urban Renewal Plan, a document that identifies neighborhoods ripe for incentives to encourage redevelopment. A base of tax revenue generated in a certain geographic area would be established and whatever excess revenue generated over the base is reinvested in the area through incentives to pay for public improvements.<\/p>\n

URAs use taxes that would not have been generated if it weren\u2019t for redevelopment in an area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it is, if we don\u2019t intervene in these areas, property and sales tax may decline,\u201d Shine said. \u201cWe want to intervene, make change if we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the city can\u2019t establish a URA; it has to start in the community, Shine said. It takes at least 25 people to sign a petition requesting the City Council pass a resolution and appoint board members to form a URA. The 13 board members can include city councilors and must include representatives from at least three other tax districts, like La Plata County or Durango School District 9-R.<\/p>\n

State standards require any redevelopment area within an Urban Renewal Plan to meet at least three of these criteria: deteriorating structures; inadequate street layout; faulty lot layout; unsanitary or unsafe conditions; deterioration of site or other improvements; unusual topography; title issues; fire hazards and other life-saving concerns; buildings with code violations and dilapidation; environmental contamination; and inadequate public improvements or utilities.<\/p>\n

Statewide nonprofit Downtown Colorado Inc. and the cities of Durango and Montrose have partnered to gather and encourage private and public sector leaders to generate ideas and nurture innovation for redevelopment in western Colorado. The event is scheduled for the end of May at the Durango Public Library.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to bring people to Durango from all over the region to look at examples of redevelopment,\u201d Shine said. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be a collaborative forum between the public and private sector; what\u2019s the best way to encourage redevelopment?\u201d<\/p>\n

bhauff@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 community members must petition City Council for Urban Renewal Authority<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1020,453],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-durango-city-council","tag-housing-and-urban-planning"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94649"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}