"The Eugene urban renewal district was formed in 1968. Property taxes for the area are currently capped at the 1968 rates. Usually urban renewal districts only last twenty-years, but the downtown Eugene district has been extended numerous times."

An absolute 20-year time limit should be written into state law. The county, school district and other taxing jurisdictions have been waiting for that revenue for 40 YEARS! Inexcusable.

Here's a solution:

1. A taxing district who wants to form a urban renewal district must absorb the full cost of the URA - it cannot steal money from other taxing districts (i.e. a city taking revenue from a county).

2. The taxing district which forms the URA cannot increase taxes on other district taxpayers, without an explicit vote of all district residents. (So the city can't raise everyone else's taxes to pay for the lost revenue. Which means the city either has to reduce services, or cannot add services to the URA - which then defeats the purpose of the URA.)

Eugene's understanding and actions about urban renewal will soon be playing out in Wilsonville when they try to foist a district on the east side of I-5 after the west side UR essentially failed. It went broke so they just extended the boundaries to get more tax dollars.

They still haven't completed many of the URA projects as promised, so just expand the boundaries for more cash.

Sounds like what is happening in SoWhat.