Here’s some good news for those who are looking forward to urban-renewal development projects around Colorado. According to a report from June 6 and an update on June 9, the governor of Colorado has vetoed a bill that would have made more restrictions on the issue of urban-renewal developments.
This veto came after a month of efforts by commercial real estate developers, leaders of the city and urban-dwelling legislators that wanted to stop House Bill 1375. They claimed it would lead to a reduction in projects that normally receive tax incentives. These incentives are given to those who redevelop city areas.
This veto will help to continue to provide the tax incentives to those who want to improve on the cities in the state. That means that underdeveloped and areas that need updated may have a better chance of having that happen in the future.
When a city marks an area as “blighted,” it means it needs redevelopment. That can mean turning the area into retail spaces. That is an issue for some counties, according to the news, because the counties rely on property taxes that they won’t receive in the same way from these new businesses.
HB 1375 would have make it so that county officials would have had to get at least a seat on the urban-renewal authority boards. Also, it would have forced cities to put aside the percent of revenue from sales tax revenue that counties were losing from the loss of property tax. The governor argued that the bill mandated that the property tax increment be less than the percentage of allocated municipal sales tax increment, but that wasn’t considering the variety of ways an urban renewal project could take place. That could hurt projects that would have otherwise helped the areas.
Source: Colorado Business Jounral, “Hickenlooper vetoes bill limiting Colorado urban-renewal development” Ed Sealover, Jun. 09, 2014
