Despite the changes made last year by the Legislature, Idaho’s Urban Renewal legislation needs further review. Many existing URA’s are misusing this program and imposing an economic burden on the property tax structure of our communities.   

Urban Renewal should be restricted to use in truly blighted areas of our communities or to true economic development. There should also be a mechanism for the preemptive termination of under-performing URA districts which have not met and show no potential to meet objectives. This should be determined at the Agency level or — in the absence of such action by URA — the City Council or a citizens’ initiative. We currently have districts that are neither creating jobs nor removing blight, but which continue to be a burden on the taxpayer and community leaders who are attempting to provide a reasonable level of city services with an eroding tax base. 

URA districts were often created or extended to the maximum 25-year life span (20 years after legislative changes last year), and the URA continues to collect incremental tax dollars despite the fact that several existing districts require enhanced city and first-responder services and have created few — if any — jobs and little return on investment. 

The URA legislation should also be amended to require a DIRECT nexus between the taxpayer dollars that are paid to developers, and the benefit those developers provide to the community. This benefit is not infrastructure paid for with tax dollars and donated for maintenance and upkeep purposes to the city, but reduced land prices to make our community more competitive when attracting new employers, or assisting existing employers expand, and other incentives provided by the URA or the developer, which act as a catalyst for job creation.   

If we want to go further and reward only success, we could make infrastructure reimbursement contingent on the provision of a specific number of NEW jobs in our community. The number could be agreed upon and made a part of the Development Agreement entered into between the URA and the developer and reimbursement tied directly to the creation of such jobs.   

It’s time to think outside the box. 

LEN CROSBY

Post Falls