Post Falls Officials Alter Tax Plan For Riverbend

The Post Falls Urban Renewal Commission changed plans for the Riverbend area Tuesday morning - the second time it has done so to soothe worries about how it’s paying for its plans.

The commission, which will pay for improvements to the Riverbend area by a method that freezes taxes collected from the area, will only freeze the taxes for up to five years at a time.

The funding method is called tax increment financing. People and businesses located in an urban renewal district - an area the city has determined needs improvements such as lights and sidewalks - pay the same taxes everyone else does.

However, because the amount taxing agencies receive is frozen, the urban renewal commission collects the difference and uses that money to pay off bonds it takes out to pay for improvements.

The commission decided unanimously Tuesday that taxes will be frozen for no longer than five years in the Riverbend District to pay off the first set of bonds it issues. The first set of bonds will raise about $1 million.

After that, the commission will have to hold public hearings to issue more bonds to raise the rest of the money for the plan, which it estimates will cost about $3.89 million.

Previously, and in other urban renewal districts, the commission could freeze the amount of money taxing agencies receive for the lifetime of the district. In the case of the Riverbend Urban Renewal District, the lifetime is 15 years.

A miscalculation by engineers hired by the commission had led the fire district and others to believe the plan would cost $3.89 million instead of $4.95 million. After they voiced their concerns, the commission changed the amount to $3.89 million.

The passage of the resolution Tuesday morning considerably eases the concerns of John Malloy, a fire district commissioner.

“The 15-year time span was just totally foreign and unacceptable to us,” he said.

, DataTimes