Progress on creating an urban renewal district in Bellevue took a leap forward early last week when the City Council approved an ordinance appointing the members of an urban renewal agency board.
For now, the seven-member board will be composed of the Bellevue City Council and Mayor Jon Anderson.
During the same meeting, the council also approved two separate but related resolutions. The first establishes the urban renewal agency's board of commissioners, and the second designates the preliminary boundary for the proposed district.
Idaho law states that urban renewal districts can only cover an area of a city that is equal to no more than 10 percent of its total assessed value.
Current thinking by elected officials has the district covering a large portion of the city's downtown business core and some nearby residential areas.
Before the district boundaries are ultimately finalized, however, the city will have to hold a series of public hearings in front of the Bellevue Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council.
The purpose of urban renewal districts is to fund much needed infrastructure improvement projects a city is unable to fund.
Such districts generate funds without increasing property taxes and without affecting the local school district by capturing new growth values that otherwise would go to various taxing entities such as the city, county, and recreation, ambulance and fire districts.
Although cities forming urban renewal districts lose tax revenue generated from within the district, they benefit from their formation in a number of ways.
The most obvious is that much-needed infrastructure improvement projects cities are unable to fund due to scant financial resources can be completed more quickly without the use of city funds.
And because they incur debt separately from the cities they're within, urban renewal districts can also apply for outside government funding separate from the city, Bellevue City Council member Tammy Eaton explained at a meeting earlier this year.
"They don't indebt the city for what is being done in the city," Eaton said.
Earlier this year, the Ketchum City Council established an urban renewal district and, like Bellevue, named itself the board for the urban renewal agency.
