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Citizens interested in Huber Heights City Council |
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Succeeding in Huber Heights |
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Aquatic Center |
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City Council has the Aquatic Center on fast track with the stated objective of getting it completed by 4th of July 2012. In March they approved $700,000 to purchase 14 acres of property next to the YMCA. This was done on the same night they introduced the project to the city. The funds they intend to use for the building of the aquatic center come about because of the way the I-70 interchanges were funded. This money is called TIF funds. Basically, in these funds the owners of the business properties within the TIF district pay the same taxes as if they would normally however that tax is split up into two categories. The first category is City tax and the second is a TIF tax. The city tax is based on the city tax rate and the value of the property before the I-70 interchange TIF district was established. The TIF portion is based on the increase in value since that time. The TIF portion seems to go toward paying off the interchanges. The TIF portion can also be used for capital improvements inside the TIF district. Capital improvements include road construction, drainage, sewer etc and apparently Aquatic Centers. Like I’ve said previously there are a lot of interesting things about this project and it may be the right thing to do with this money. However, I think the council has an obligation to give the residents more insight into the details that make this the right decision. I think the council should have posted on their website information about TIF districts in general and the Huber Heights TIF district specifically. I would have like to see what other sites were considered and why this one is the best. Currently, the city is paying $300,000 a year to service the debt on the I-70 interchanges. Could this money be used to pay that off early? The full cost of the center has not been narrowed. However, they do mention that they think they can borrow up to $6 million dollars against future TIF funds in order to do the project. Also, there has been no public discussion on how they plan to operate the site once it is built. They haven’t talked about daily or yearly fees etc. They haven’t discussed this in terms of what we are giving up as far as a possible tax rate reduction if they used these funds for what is normally considered capital improvements. In fact they are eager to say that no “tax” dollars will be spent on the aquatic center. But TIF funds are primarily meant for road and sewer improvements/ repair. Is council leaving enough funds available to ensure this type of work will be done through-out the entire TIF district or will they have to substitute normal tax dollars for the TIF funds in order to do road and sewer repairs? Here are links to my original articles on this project Original Article Follow-up TIF Summary
There are some positive newspaper articles about the center available.
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Huber Heights in the winter |
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Summary of what I know Update: Here is a TIF Summary provided by the City (I now need to reconcile my article with the summary provided by the city.) |
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20 April 2011 |
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