The Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency

Urban Renewal in Idaho: Urban renewal essentially allows cities and counties to take tax dollars and devote them to economic development projects. This is done by taking an area, drawing a boundary around it and determining the initial taxing value. Every increase in value within that boundary causes more taxes to be generated. Those additional taxes over the initial amount are provided to the urban renewal agency. The urban renewal agency is then to accomplish projects that are approved by the city or county.

Within the City of Sandpoint, we have two districts. The "Northern District" surrounds the airport. The "Downtown District" encompasses the downtown and some of the surrounding areas. The Northern District was created with the idea of saving money to pave Great Northern Road. The Downtown District was created with the idea of re-doing streets and sidewalk in the downtown in order to revitalize our commercial area. The Downtown District has a very specific plan. The plan specifies which streets are to be completed and in what order.

The plans are similar to a contract between the urban renewal agency and the city. Urban renewal agencies are independent organizations. Therefore, they can do what they want. However, cities are given control over the urban renewal agencies by being able to approve the plan. That way the City knows that the tax dollars it is choosing to forego are being used for economic development purposes that further the interests of the city.

We've had some rough spots with our urban renewal. The Northern District hasn't had significant development within the last five years and therefore doesn't have a lot of funds to spend. Despite the plan, the Northern District chose to re-do some streets near Farmin school several year ago as a public image project. On the other hand, the Downtown District makes over $200,000 dollars a year and therefore has significant abilities.

In 2009 the City of Sandpoint cut a number of projects from the budget. Sandpoint's Urban Renewal Agency then decided to fund some of these projects including improvements to the City beach pilings and partial payment for upgrades to the police communications system. These projects were not part of the Downtown District's plan.

I'm a big supporter of urban renewal. I think that it is one of the most powerful tools available to municipalities. However, I believe that it should be used cautiously and carefully. When an urban renewal agency spends tax dollars on projects that weren't previously approved, it is a very serious problem. Urban renewal has now hired independent counsel and has taken many steps towards restoring my confidence.

Within the last six months, the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency has discussed amending its downtown plan to allow it to spend money on projects other than those originally considered. Since the plan amendments must be approved by the City Council, the Council and urban renewal need to effectively agree on how to use urban renewal monies and what projects to do.

Our urban renewal agency is composed of volunteers. They do an excellent job and stretch their dollars a long ways. For the past 5 years there has been almost no administrative overhead thanks for the board volunteering their services. The difficulty is that the urban renewal board holds a different perspective than the Council on budgeting and tax dollars. They don't see how we scrape for $30,000 a year to hire a new part-time assistant or buy a police car. They don't know that we cut officer training in order to save costs. They spend the money that we carefully dedicate for economic development.

My biggest fear in this process is that the urban renewal agency will undertake a very detailed and complex process to change the plan without talking to the City Council. Without a common vision, I would expect the plan amendments to be rejected by the City Council. This would be very discouraging. For that reason, I have been very vocal about what I want to see in a plan. I've tried to voice this opinion loudly and early in order to avoid a future conflict. This has drawn some criticism from the urban renewal agency but I think that it's resulted in a better result.

We had a joint workshop with the urban renewal board several months ago to consider their latest draft of the amended downtown plan. The plan was very broad. It basically allowed urban renewal to spend money any way that they choose. Because these are tax dollars and based upon some of their past spending decisions, I have real concerns with this approach. I want to know exactly how they are going to spend the money. For that reason, I said that I won't support the draft plan and requested a more specific plan with detailed, prioritized projects. Currently, the urban renewal has completed their draft version and I expect that the Council will take it up next month.

June 2010 Council Mtg.

Issue 1: Whether to approve the new Sandcreek gateway. ITD has allocated funds to the City of Sandpoint for improvements to the alleyway by the Panida theater.

Analysis 1: This is one of the greatest things about being on the City Council. When I have the opportunity to be a part of something that will change the City for the better. I hope that this is one of those. However, I'm cautious. Amazing public art can sometimes be elusive. There are so many great projects that I see which beautify their cities. However, sometimes you see spectacular failures.

Conclusion 1: We have been very lucky to attract a wonderful artist to design and build an archway near the alleyway by the Panida. The proposed design looks incredible. I'm optimistic. We voted to approve the design.