Tax Increment Financing Background and Information (TIF)

Purpose

The West Linn Urban Renwal Agency (Agency) is being asked to review the proposed West Linn Willamette Riverfront Tax Increment Finance Area Plan (Plan) and to decide whether to recommend the Plan be forwarded through the public review process of tax increment finance plans, including sending to all impacted taxing districts for a 45 day consult and confer time period, presentation to the Planning Commission for their review of conformance with the West Linn Comprehensive Plan, to the Clackamas County Commission for a briefing, and to the West Linn City Council for a public hearing and consideration of a non-emergency ordinance to adopt the Plan

Background

The Willamette Riverfront Area (Area) has been the subject of various planning, visioning, and analysis over at least the previous 30 years. As part of the Waterfront visioning conducted by the City of West Linn (City) in 2019, staff reviewed these previous efforts and used the common themes to develop draft guiding principles for the master plan process. The draft guiding principles in turn were evaluated against goal and policy statements in the City’s current Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan analysis is shown in Section XIII of this Plan.

Throughout the review of the planning for the Willamette Riverfront Area, the list of capital projects has been consistent. Even with continued visioning for the Area, the capital projects are not expected to change. If they do, the projects in the Plan can be changed through a minor amendment to the Plan as specified in Section VII of this Plan.

The West Linn Willamette TIF Area Plan Area (Area), shown in Figure 1, consists of approximately 333.8 acres, which is composed of 161 individual parcels encompassing 197.41 acres, and an additional 136.30 acres in public rights-of-way. It is anticipated that the West Linn Willamette TIF Area Plan (Plan) will take thirty years of tax increment collections to implement. The maximum amount of indebtedness that may be issued for the Plan is not to exceed $76,100,000 (Seventy-Six Million One Hundred Thousand dollars). Detailed financial analysis is in the Report Accompanying the West Linn Willamette Riverfront Tax Increment Plan (Report).

The West Linn Urban Renewal Ad Hoc Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee) met three times and reviewed materials for this Plan including the boundary, projects list and financial information The Advisory Committee met on October 18, 2022 and made the following recommendations through a vote of the committee. These are majority approved recommendations. There was not unanimous consensus on the items. The taxing district representatives abstained from voting: (TVFR, West Linn Wilsonville School District). Th Planning Commission representative also abstained as the Plan will be reviewed by the Planning Commission in the future as part of any adoption process.

The Advisory Committee recommended the West Linn Urban Renewal Agency move forward with preparation of the Willamette TIF District Plan with the following points included in the Plan:
1. The boundary is approved as is.
2. The project list is approved as is with the following input:
  1. Assistance for the creation of affordable housing should be added to the list of projects with examples of programs like land trusts, SDC reimbursement, infrastructure improvements.
  2. There was discussion about inclusion of the Tannler Road project. There was not time to fully resolve the question. John Williams noted it is a project in the TSP. We agreed to make sure the Agency knew of the concern about the project. The Savannah Neighborhood Association unanimously opposed putting this project into the Plan.
  3. There was no prioritization of the project list, but rather an acknowledgement that projects to be undertaken should be reviewed in a public process as could be done in the preparation of a 5 Year Action Plan or with a TIF Plan Advisory Committee.
3. Plan goals or principles in the Plan should include reference to the following:
  1. The projects should be reviewed under an equity lens. This often includes things such as access to public spaces, parks, transit, affordable housing, preventing business displacement.
  2. One of the goals or principles of the Plan should include the protection of natural resources. This will also be addressed in the section of the Plan that deals with conformance to the Comprehensive Plan as Goal 5, Section 2 of the Comprehensive Plan applies to natural resource protection.
4. The Plan should include requirements for financial review at set time frames i.e., 15 years, 20 years to understand whether the Area is performing as expected. This review should be shared with the overlapping taxing districts.
The Advisory Committee considered whether to recommend that the City Council ask for a vote of the West Linn electorate on the formation of an urban renewal area. They declined to make that recommendation.
The Advisory Committee considered whether to recommend that the City Council ask for an “advisory” vote of the West Linn electorate on the formation of an urban renewal area. They declined to make that recommendation.
The Advisory Committee considered whether to recommend that the City Council include in the Plan a provision that all debt (bonds) must go for a vote of the West Linn electorate. They declined to make that recommendation.

Process

The process for approval will include the following steps, in accordance with ORS 457.

Preparation of a Plan including opportunity for citizen involvement and an Advisory Committee review.
Agency review of the proposed Plan and accompanying Report on April 10, 2023.
Review and recommendation by the West Linn Planning Commission on May 3, 2023.
Presentation of the Plan to the Clackamas County Commission for a briefing.
Notice to citizens of consideration of an ordinance via utility bills in June 2023.
Forwarding a copy of the proposed Plan and the Report to the governing body of each taxing district. If directed by the Agency, the formal taxing districts letters will be sent out on April 11, 2023.
Hearing by West Linn City Council and adoption of the proposed Plan and accompanying Report by a non-emergency ordinance. The hearing is scheduled for June 12, 2023. The ordinance must be a non-emergency ordinance, which means that the ordinance does not take effect until 30 days after its approval and during that period of time may be referred to West Linn voters if a sufficient number of signatures are obtained on a referral petition.