Can an "urban renewal" area shut itself down?
A reader in the Lents neighborhood of southeast Portland complains that he's given up on "urban renewal" ever doing anything good in his part of town. And so he'd like to see the "urban renewal" district out that way disbanded, with the diverted "tax increment" (property tax) money going back to basic services. He asks us if the majority of property owners in an "urban renewal" area can shut down the district -- to secede from the Portland Development Commission, as it were.
We're no expert on these matters, but we doubt it. We'd bet that it all rests in the excellent judgment of the five members of the City Council. A Clackistani-style rebellion with a ballot measure might do the trick, however. Perhaps our readers can offer some helpful thoughts.
| Posted at 10:42 AM | Permalink |
|
Comments (13)
I suggest that they check in to seceding from the city entirely. Create their own new municipality.
Posted by godfry | November 14, 2012 10:56 AM
$35.7 million in long term debt...
Fugget about it!
Posted by Portland Native | November 14, 2012 11:28 AM
How much of that district's money went to finance the toy train?
Thanks
JK
Posted by jim karlock | November 14, 2012 12:28 PM
Supposedly, after the bonds get paid off, the URD is supposed to shut down, but I've never heard it happening.
Why would CoP let that money go back to schools when they can piss away just fine?
Posted by Steve | November 14, 2012 12:48 PM
It would be very very interesting to have a chart of exactly which neighborhoods pay and how much they pay and then how much that particular area gets returned to their community?
Posted by clinamen | November 14, 2012 12:54 PM
I live 2/3 mile from Lents and would happily vote to shut down the URD on a ballot measure.
Posted by TacoDave | November 14, 2012 1:08 PM
I don't live in a URD, and yet pay 25% of my city tax dollar to UR. Still trying to figure that one out.
Posted by Snards | November 14, 2012 1:13 PM
Last year the California state legislature euthanized all UR districts in the state. Oregon should do the same.
Posted by John Charles | November 14, 2012 1:36 PM
Yeah, I don't have any school aged children, and yet I pay all sorts of taxes to support public schools. What's going on?
Posted by Ted | November 14, 2012 1:36 PM
clinamen -
There are such charts.
A SWNI a few years ago we had several, for SWNI as a whole and for each of the thirteen constituent neighborhoods within SWNI.
The charts showed that each neighborhood, and SWNI as a whole, exported far more dollars (paid general fund taxes, fees, and bond payments) to the Ciy of Portland ha the area received in police, fire, parks, road maintenance and pavement and sidewalks than it received. The SWNI area was the biggest dollar exporter in the city, and the Southeas, Northeast, and far east side were beneficiaries of far more spending, either per capita, per residential unit, or per square mile than the payments made.
Residential Southwest, outside the downtown area and the South Portland Neighborhood, are the city's "piggy bank", always being robbed to provide services and capital improvements elsewhere.
We obtained he chars from some friendly sources within the a city bureau. Directors of two other bureaus were very unhappy when he chars were shoved in heir faces to refute their BS claims hat we were not being shortchanged on services and capital improvements.
Posted by Nonny Mouse | November 14, 2012 1:41 PM
Nonny,
Could you share those charts? I wanna see how much of my SW fat is being spread easterly.
Posted by Ted | November 14, 2012 1:47 PM
Last year the California state legislature euthanized all UR districts in the state. Oregon should do the same.
I don't know how likely that is. As far as I can tell, our "Vichy" legislature does what Portland tells it to.
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | November 14, 2012 8:11 PM
The area within Portland city limits east of the ODOT property line on I-205 (east of the TriMet property line from Gateway TC south to between Powell and Division), south of the ODOT property line on I-84, west of Gresham and north of Johnson Creek, seriously needs to bail ship and form their own city.
The benefits of the above boundaries is that the new city would have no responsibility patrolling ODOT's Interstate highways (besides on I-84 there would only be two eastbound off-ramps, one on-ramp, and no westbound ramps), nor would they have to deal with snowplowing roads on Mount Scott. I-205 and I-84 form logical barriers to other cities. 122nd Avenue forms a logical Main Street. And having its property line east of TriMet's Green Line means the city would not have to provide security for the MAX stations itself.
Posted by Erik H. | November 14, 2012 9:35 PM