City could get new downtown

Hayden will probably get a new downtown, but some property owners aren’t happy with the cost.

Most property owners along Government Way agree the two-lane street with no sidewalks, creosote-soaked light poles and unsightly power lines isn’t attracting people to their shops and businesses.

Yet some of the 70-some property owners in the blocks between Hayden and Honeysuckle avenues don’t think they should pay the majority of the cost to beautify the area that Hayden wants to identify as its downtown corridor.

“It borders on confiscation,” Milton Ventress told the Hayden City Council Tuesday night. “These improvements aren’t for the businesses. It’s for the community. We’re mad, to put it mildly.”

The council voted 3-1 to create a local improvement district, meaning the property owners between Hayden and Honeysuckle avenues will have to contribute $1.07 million to the beatification project that will include burying utility lines on the east side of the street, median islands, street trees, decorative street lamps and a concrete intersection at Hayden Avenue.

For Ventress, who owns a building on the east side of Government Way that includes a pet shop, wine-making store and picture frame business, that’s a $40,000 bill.

The city won’t start collecting the extra property tax until 2008, and if Hayden doesn’t get a $500,000 community development block grant it may not do the improvements.

Council members said they acted quickly on creating the local improvement district because showing that property owners are willing to help pay the bill is key to getting the federal grant.

The improvements would be made next year when Government Way is reconstructed and converted into three lanes with sidewalks, curbs and swales.

City Planner Lisa Key said the other enhancement must happen simultaneously with the street reconstruction.

After that work is done, the city wants to potentially create other local improvement districts to make improvements from Honeysuckle to Prairie avenues and then between Hayden and Miles avenues. The goal is to create a district downtown that’s friendly to pedestrians.

Councilwoman Nancy Taylor said the property owners are paying only 24 percent of the $4.4 million project, which includes the street reconstruction. The majority is from federal dollars while the city is pitching in $190,000. She said that shows the whole community is helping with the bill.

“If we are going to have a visible downtown corridor we have to bite the bullet and go for it,” said Taylor, adding that Hayden is following what other towns have already done. She points to improvements to Sherman Avenue, Coeur d’Alene’s downtown street. “A downtown is what defines your city. I hear it all the time, ‘Where is downtown Hayden?’ “

Councilman Chris Beck is in favor of creating the LID, yet he voted against it Tuesday because he wants the city to choose less expensive beautification improvements.

He said it’s possible for the city to trim down the costs by eliminating items such as the concrete intersection at Hayden Avenue.

Taylor disagreed and said the council already voted in Janurary to approve the more expensive assortment of improvements.

The city received 18 protest letters, which included numerous letters from two property owners and two letters from property owners not located in the district.

Taylor said that means only 12 people officially complained.