JohnA: A Free Ride To A New Park

JohnA: I helped to create LCDC fifteen years ago. The only tax dollars pledged to McEuen are from those property owners in the Lake District, which is mostly properties in downtown, midtown and along NW Boulevard. They are less than ten percent of all city taxpayers. Their taxes are no higher or lower than those paid by anyone else. It is just that their taxes flow to LCDC during the life of the Lake District, which begain in 1997 and ends in about eight more years. The taxes from those property owners, and ONLY those property owners will pay the bulk of the cost for McEuen Field. I know that sounds odd to most people. Less than one in ten property owners are paying for something all city residents, and those of us who don’t live in the city, will enjoy, but that’s the way urban renewal works. Then, when McEuen is paid for in about eight years, those taxes will flow to their normal place which is to the city, county, NIC, etc. And, contrary to what some people think, residents outside the Lake District pay no more in taxes with LCDC than if it didn’t exist. So, the rest of us get a free ride to a new McEuen, with most of it paid by a few taxpayers in the city.

Question: Do you know how an urban renewal district actually works?