City planning commission eyes TID 14 expansion
The city of Medford is looking to expand a mixed-use tax incremental district (TID) in order to be ready if future growth occurs in the area.
On Tuesday, members of the Medford Planning Commission reviewed and approved a resolution in support of a proposed boundary expansion for Tax Incremental District No. 14. The district was created in 2022 and includes the city-owned parcels south of CTH O and along Pep’s Drive as well as industrial and rental apartment areas. The intent is to expand the boundaries of TID 14 to include additional city-owned parcels as well as those owned by private individuals.
TIDs are development tools where taxes collected on improvements made to the district that would normally go to the school district, technical college, county and state are retained by the city and are used to help pay off the cost of putting in things like roads, utilities and other items spelled out in the TID project plan. The overlying taxing entities still receive the base value of the land and structures at what they were when the district was created.
Brian Reilly of Ehlers Associates, the city’s advisors for TIDs, explained that as a mixed-used TID, TID 14 contains elements of commercial, industrial and residential. State law limits the amount of value of a community that can be in TIDs to being no more than 12% of the total value. With the closure of a number of existing TIDs, the city had the capacity to create and now look at expanding TID 14.
Medford has been aggressive and successful in utilizing TIDs for development projects, primarily using them to develop vacant land for industrial expansions. Both of the city’s industrial parks were developed and expanded using TIDs as well as commercial corridors including TID 13 which includes the Walmart property and other land stretching along Hwy 13. TIDS have a set lifespan and can incur new expenses up to 5 years before the end of that life of the TID. TID 14 will be active until 2043.
Reilly explained that while the area of TID 14 is set to increase with this request, the budgeted projects in the project plan are not. Prior to action by commission members, a public hearing was held on the expansion plan. There was no one at the public hearing.
Reilly said it did not surprise him that there were no comments from the public, he described the TID 14 amendment as being “non-controversial.” The new areas entering the TID will be frozen for the overlying tax districts at their 2025 base value, while the value of the original parcels in the TID will remain frozen at the level they were at in 2022 when the district was created.
State law limits the number of times boundaries can be changed on TIDs to four, with this amendment the city will have the ability to change the boundaries a maximum of three more times.
The process for approving and making changes to TIDs is a complex one with multiple steps including approvals at the city council, planning commission and by the members of the joint board of review. The city council is scheduled to take action on the amendment at its meeting scheduled for next week. The joint board of review is set to meet later this month for an up or down vote on the proposed amendment, The joint board of review is made up of members of each of the overlying districts. Reilly noted there are limits in the statutes about why they could reject a TID or changes to a TID.
“They can't just vote against something if they don't like it,” Reilly said.
In addition to approving the TID 14 amendment, commission members also had their first formal chance to review the plat for the Johnson Subdivision which is located adjacent to the city-sponsored residential development at Pep’s Drive.
Member Dave Zimmerman praised the city for making these lots about twice the size of the lots in the Pep’s Subdivision. At close to a half-acre each the hope is they will be more marketable. City coordinator Joe Harris said that they were finding people were buying two lots in the Simek subdivision.
The eventual goal of the project will be the development of the residential subdivision with the intent of having the access road connecting to CTH O. Harris explained that this would create an additional access way into the area, but that nothing would be built in the next few years until there was interest in the parcels.
The first section of parcels along Pep’s Drive have utility and road access and are currently available for construction, Harris said. Commission member Tim Hansen noted construction is already taking place on one of the lots with the high school shop class building a home there. He described getting approval of the plat now, to the horses being out of the barn.
The plat approval process involves multiple steps. City planner Bob Christensen explained the city council first sent it to the planning commission triggering a 40-day period during which the commission met for the initial review and will formally approve the plat at the October commission meeting. At the city council level, there will be a public hearing and final action to approve the plat. Since the plat is for a city-sponsored development on cityowned land, it is a matter of formalities and adhering to the development codes to go through the steps until final approval occurs in October.
