Roads End Improvement Association
Roads End/Villages draft Urban Renewal Plan:
August 2020
On Monday August 10, the Lincoln City City Council voted to approve the adoption of the Roads End/Villages at Cascade Head Urban Renewal (Tax Increment Finance) Area Plan. Urban renewal is a program authorized under state law and implemented locally that allows for the concentrated use of property tax revenues to upgrade certain designated areas of a city or county. It is not a new tax or an increase in taxes. This action by the City Council concludes the community meetings on the Plan at this time.
Next Steps:
The deferral of tax revenues for the new Roads End/Villages Plan will begin in 2021. You will not see an increase in your property taxes, but will continue to see a line item on your property tax bill for the Urban Renewal Agency. These deferred dollars will be collected until such time there are sufficient funds to begin a community visioning process of what specific projects will be completed with these funds and in what order. The process to collect sufficient funds may take from 5-10 years, depending on how much is collected and how quickly. If there are new homes built in the Villages, for example, there will be new property tax revenue to draw from which would make the accumulation of Urban Renewal dollars happen more quickly. But according to City officials, it is likely no community visioning will happen for at least 5 years, and likely up to 10. At that time, City officials and residents/property owners will revisit the priorities for projects identified in 2019-2020 to determine which are still relevant and are the best use of Urban Renewal Plan funds. It is critical that the public, and Roads End residents and property owners in particular are actively engaged in this process to ensure neighborhood needs are met. It should be noted that this Urban Renewal Plan has an overall life of 27 years. In other words, funds will be deferred and projects completed over that time period.
For more information, visit: https://www.lincolncity.org/index.asp?SEC=3702D6D7-0A9A-4DF3-97BD-8608D25B3084&Type=B_BASIC
March 5th, 2020:
The Urban Renewal Agency for the City of Lincoln City, along with consultant Elaine Howard, recently hosted the second of two public forums on Tuesday, February 18 at the Lincoln City Cultural Center. The February 18 meeting was attended by approximately 35 people.
Alison Robertson (Director) and Jodi Mescher (Economic Development Coordinator) from the City both presented information.
Alison opened the presentation by reviewing “Year 2000 Urban Renewal Plan" adopted in 1988, including how urban renewal projects are funded; the current Urban Renewal Planning Process to date and a review of the proposed boundary for the Urban Renewal District. See the Financial Projections and Boundary information here.
Key points from Alison’s presentation were:
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Currently there is little development in the Villages, so tax revenues above the frozen base allocated to the Urban Renewal district will come primarily from properties in Roads End until there is more development in the Villages.
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A certain level of tax revenue must be reached before a community visioning process can be completed which will prioritize actual projects to be undertaken. It is now estimated that it will take 10 years to collect this level of tax revenues from primarily Roads End (and also from any current or new development in the Villages), instead of the original goal of five years. This means residents will see no projects started under this plan until at least 2030.
Jodi followed Alison by presenting the input collected to date from the community on the projects the community would like to see. A list of the project categories can be found here. Input from the community related to each of those categories can be found in this Input Summary.
Jodi also reviewed the projected costs of possible projects by category (here) and costs by public input (here).
Additional information on the impact on other taxing districts during the 25-year urban renewal plan can be found here.
The projected timeline and next steps are:
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April 28: Advisory Committee Meeting 4
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June 15 Agency Meeting
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June Consult and Confer letters to taxing districts
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July 7 Planning Commission Meeting
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July 8 Potential Lincoln County Briefing
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July 27 City Council Hearing
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August 10 City Council Vote
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September 10 Effective Date of Urban Renewal Plan (if adopted)
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Background from January 2020:
In April 2019, Lincoln City City Council decided to move ahead with creating an Urban Renewal Plan for the Roads End/Villages area.
It is REIA's intention to keep Roads End residents appraised of the ongoing Urban Renewal process and to encourage participation.
The Urban Renewal Agency for the City of Lincoln City along with consultant Elaine Howard hosted the first of two public forums on Tuesday, January 7th at Ace’s Bar and Grill. The speakers (Alison Robertson and Elaine Howard) discussed the proposed urban renewal boundary and a list of potential capital projects to be completed in the area over a 25 year time horizon.
If you did not see the preliminary information about the urban renewal project click on the links below:
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Overview of the Roads End/Villages Urban Renewal Plan is here
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Advisory Committee Meeting #2 Agenda (held prior to public meeting) is here
The meeting was well attended (approximately 75 to 100 people). Alison opened the presentation by discussing the "Year 2000 Urban Renewal Plan" adopted in 1988 to eliminate blight and depreciated property values within the defined urban renewal district.
She then covered specific projects completed as part of the "2008 Cutler Community Vision & Corridor Plan Project." A few of the projects include:
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SW Jetty Realignment
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SW 62nd - 63rd Sidewalk Section
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Cutler City Pump Station Speed Table & Sidewalks
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Bay Walk Schooner Point Highway 101 Turnout
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DeLake Utility Under-grounding
Consultant Elaine Howard then presented background information on the concept of Urban Renewal as well as information about how it is financed.
One of the key concepts of urban renewal is "blight." According to Elaine, "blight" (for urban renewal purposes by ORS 457 state statute) is defined as (high level) ..
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Under-development or under-utilization of property
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Poor condition of buildings
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Inadequacy of infrastructure including streets and utilities
For Roads End you might think about the lack of sidewalks, aging sewer and water system, lack of storm drains, even the Roads End State Park and above ground utility poles/wires as potential project targets for urban renewal monies.
Urban Renewal does not provide new money, rather, it diverts funds that would go to other property tax districts. This is called Tax Increment Financing (good explanation from the City of Hillsboro, OR). Urban renewal (in and of itself) does not raise property taxes.
Instead, during the use of tax increment financing, the permanent rate property taxes on the growth in assessed value in the urban renewal area are allocated to the Urban Renewal Agency and not the individual taxing districts. The taxing districts are still able to collect the property tax revenues from the assessed value of the frozen base but increases in revenues are allocated to the Urban Renewal Agency for use within the urban renewal area. More information here.
For example, the North Lincoln Fire District is a separate taxing district that would forego tax increases and continue to operate on the frozen tax base over the course of the urban renewal district while the area itself is growing/being developed.
In particular, given there is virtually no development in the Villages at Cascade Head, all new property taxes collected as development occurs will be steered toward the urban renewal district. The Fire District will still be responsible for responding to calls coming in from the area.
This is considered by some as one of the downsides of urban renewal financing. It limits increases in revenue of an existing taxing district in lieu of the Urban Renewal projects. Continuing to use the Fire District as an example, their ability to invest in personnel and equipment that might otherwise have been funded from increases in property taxes would be deferred.
Urban renewal is widely used in the state of Oregon. You can learn more and see a wide variety of projects completed across the state by clicking here and downloading an extensive presentation by Elaine Howard.
You can download the presentation delivered by Alison and Elaine on January 7th here.
Public Input Survey for those Unable to Attend Meeting on January 7th:
If you were NOT able to attend the meeting, there is a SurveyMonkey link here for you to add your ideas about project priorities within the district (if and when formed). Project list is here.
The January 7th meeting at Aces Bar & Grill featured audience participation in a project prioritization project.
Placing Dots on Flip Charts Exercise:
The attendees where provided 5 green and 1 blue dot to place on flip charts representing potential projects. The blue dot was to be placed on the highest priority project. The green dots were placed on lesser priority projects. If one project was especially important to an attendee, they could place all their dots on that project. This of course can skew the results (versus only being able to place one green dot on a project). But remember that when you are reviewing the charts and numbers of dots placed on each of the potential projects.
The results of this "dot" process were:
Economic Development/emergency preparedness/public transportation:
Parks and Open Space:
Public Works Utilities:
Public Works and Transportation:
Project List Updated:
A complete list of the potential projects in PDF form can be found here. This is slightly updated from the list provided at the meeting and a good resource for discussion/review. The same link appears above in the SurveyMonkey section.
The second public forum will be held Tuesday, February 18th at the Lincoln City Cultural Center at 5:30 PM.
Should you have questions about the new Urban Renewal Area Plan and how you can provide your feedback, please do not hesitate to ask.
Alison Robertson | Director, Urban Renewal & Economic Development
541-996-1207
City Hall, 801 SW Hwy 101, Lincoln City, OR
Jodi Mescher | Economic Development Coordinator
541-996-5365
City Hall, 801 SW Hwy 101, Lincoln City, OR
