Urban Renewal bill re-establishes spirit of the law

Legislation holds development tool accountable for use of funds

April 15, 2010
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100415/OPINION01/4150313/1014/OPINION

This bill has been a long time coming.

After years of murky policy that failed to adequately define where and how developers should use Urban Renewal Authorities, House Bill 1107 now more closely aligns the development tool with much-needed accountability for the public dollar.

HB 1107, sponsored by Rep. Randy Fischer, D-Fort Collins, will be signed into law today by Gov. Bill Ritter.

URAs and tax-increment financing were generally created to help blighted communities recover by allowing them to retain tax money generated in a specific area; that revenue was used to pay for public infrastructure and transportation upgrades. In turn, those improvements often inspired private-sector redevelopment to reinvigorate the struggling areas.

But the definition of blighted in existing laws became broadly defined — so broadly defined that agricultural land was designated as blighted in order to qualify as an Urban Renewal Authority. Locally, the Centerra project in Loveland and development near Timnath defined agricultural land as blighted. While developers who took advantage of this broader definition did not break the law, the spirit and intent of the original legislation were lost.

Another growing concern is that URAs were increasingly diverting tax money away from public schools, county governments, etc. Fischer estimated the state has had to backfill about $50 million in tax money to school districts because of tax-increment financing.

The bill prohibits any area designated as a URA from containing any agricultural land. But Fischer and his fellow lawmakers also wisely allowed a provision that provides exceptions to the legislation if each public entity involved in the land agrees to the URA. A Centerra official told the Coloradoan, for example, that its URA would have been approved even under the changes because local entities supported it.

We applaud Fischer for pushing for more specific definitions that match the spirit of the law.

Printable Version of this Page