Planning Commission approves TID for the old school property

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A public hearing was held last Thursday by the Glenwood City Planning Commission to consider creating a Tax Incremental District (TID) for the old school property at Third and Oak Street. This will be the fourth TID that has been created within the city.

During the discussion about creating a new district the question was brought up about how the other three districts had done financially and it was noted that they did what was expected and collected sufficient tax revenues to pay for the improvements.

The old school building has not been used since the school sold the property about thirty years ago and the structure has fallen into disrepair.  The city purchased the property and asked the county to forgive the back taxes with the condition that the city would clean up the site.

The city had a study done to determine if the buildings could be financially remodeled, and they had paid for the clean up of hazarded material in the building. At the April 20th council meeting they approved a bid from Albrightson Excavating in the amount of $232,610 to raze the buildings and improve the site.

The reason that a TID district would be of benefit to the city is that tax revenue from improvements on the property can be used over the next twenty-years to pay for all the cost of those improvements, explained Seth Hudson of Cedar Corporation to the Planning Commission. It was learned that state approval is needed for the TID and that only funds spent after the district is created can be funded with tax revenues. The city will receive all the tax revenues on those improvements for those twenty years to pay for the work done to improve the property. Any funds left over when the TID is closed in twenty years will be shared with the school district, vocational school, county and city.

All the members of the Planning Commission approved the creation of a new TID, which will move the proposal to the full City Council for their approval.

The Planning Commission members are Ben DeGross, Ken Peterson, Craig Anderson, Anna Mewis, Tom Stack, Terry Klinger, Steve Luepke, and Mayor John Larson.