Monday night, the Corvallis City Council voted unanimously to spend $47,000 to examine special tax set asides to pay for downtown enhancement projects.
The decision to go ahead doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s tied to the Downtown Vitality Strategy Task Force’s final report, which also landed in front of council Monday. It’s a report that, among other things, lays out a wish list of projects the set asides would eventually help pay for. Think projects like riverfront work, Madison Avenue streetscaping, building façade and parking upgrades, utility infrastructure, and ADA accessibility fixes, among others.
But for the set asides to happen, voters would need to approve according to the City Charter. Given the current state of discussion among the city councilors, the earliest that would happen is likely to be next year.
Also, there would need to be a feasibility study, which the council has now approved; EcoNorthwest will be contracted. They’ve done similar studies for City in the past. The dollars to for the study will come out of a $150,000 pot the council already set aside for downtown work in the 2025-27 budget.
The study will consider two sets of boundaries for what is technically called a Tax Increment Financing, or TIF district.
What’s a TIF District
TIF districts are a tool cities can use to fund projects and priorities without technically raising anyone’s property tax rate.
The first thing a city has to do is set the district’s boundaries. Once the TIF district is created, its then current property tax amounts continue going into the City’s general fund, but the area’s yearly property tax increases don’t. Those increases, and increased assessments from new building, go into a special fund with specific purposes. In this instance, like we’ve said, projects aimed at downtown revitalization.
RELATED: Here’s what the Completed Downtown Vitality Report Says
You may have noticed a TIF District sounds like what was once called an Urban Renewal District. They’re the same animal, just under another name.
Passing these measure can be challenging. In this instance, voters would need to believe that sacrificing dollars from the city’s general fund for downtown revitalization is worthwhile. The discussion comes as Corvallisites are already reckoning with a projected budget shortall over the next biennium.
By Hallie Greenberg
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