COM 0307.003 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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deficiencies are more appropriately addressed through an improvement district or community facilities district funded by special assessments or tax increment financing. LURF believes that rather than implement "concurrency", and in this case, effectively shifting the County's burden of providing the necessary county services to the applicant, the Council should develop realistic alternatives to finance the construction of more infrastructure capacity. Requiring the applicant to secure future commitments from the County for services and infrastructure capacity that the County is responsible for planning and building seems to place the applicant in the position of reprioritizing the County's budget with no authority over the County. We recognize the need to address the current infrastructure deficiencies. We suggest that the Council find alternative ways to increase public infrastructure capacity for existing and future growth by bundling the following tools to provide the necessary financing: r. Increase and/or dedicate a portion of the real property tax revenues to specific infrastructure. 2. The County may issue and sell bonds to provide funds for such improvement districts. Bonds issued to provide funds for such improvements may be either bonds when the only security therefore is the properties benefited or improved or the assessments thereon or bonds payable from taxes or secured by the taxing power of the county. 3. The County has the power to levy and assess a special tax on property located in a district to finance the special improvements (Community Facilities Districts) and to pay the debt service on any bonds issued to finance the special improvements. 4. 'tax increment financing (TIF) is a way for governments (usually municipal authorities) to help finance new capital projects by taking advantage of expected property tax returns. A county, for example, may designate as a TIF district a plot of land that is planned to he redeveloped. Then the county can borrow against expected increased tax revenues to build infrastructure such as sewers, roads and transportation services. 5. Impact fees are a municipal assessment against new residential, industrial or commercial development projects to compensate for the added costs of public services generated by new construction. LURF is opposed to simply shifting the burden for securing infrastructure capacity from the County to the applicants for new developments and respectfully recommends that the Council consider realistic alternatives to provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate future grov~th. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this matter.