Urban Renewal Districts raise your taxes. That’s how they’re funded. The idea is that the extra taxes generated by new development or job growth offset the cost of increased taxes outside the district. Plus, when the Urban Renewal District (URD) is retired, the tax savings are passed along to the people.

Keeping those benefits in mind, the costs (i.e., higher taxes) must be justified. In other words, are the pains from the higher taxes worth the gains offered by the URD? In my opinion, the pain is worth it, but only when those gains benefit everyone. It also helps that the pains be as short as possible.

The key to making the pains-gain formula work is when an Urban Renewal Agency has a solid plan and firm direction. Sadly, this isn’t the case with the LCDC in Coeur d’Alene.

When the LCDC (then the Coeur d’Alene Urban Renewal Agency) was formed in 1997 they had a plan. The plan was submitted to the City Council for approval in September. But by the end of December, the plan was modified and the district boundaries changed. That’s because, by Statute, an Urban Renewal Plan can be “modified at any time” — no approval necessary by the governing body. So the LCDC has since run without a plan.

I questioned Mayor Bloem on why the LCDC has such an ill-defined plan. She expressed that she prefers it that way as the LCDC can be more “flexible.” But I don’t see how “flexible” fits into the pains-gains formula, especially given that the LCDC will exist and collect taxes until 2024. And there still is no plan for how to spend all that money.

Without a solid, plan, it’s up to the LCDC board to decide which projects to approve. This is why the board must hold annual “retreats” to discuss upcoming projects. Such an event is unheard of where Urban Renewal is properly practiced, in those municipalities it’s the URD plan that is primary, not the URD board.

Remember: In the United States, we are supposed to be a country of laws, not men.

So the question is, has what the LCDC done with your tax dollars that has benefitted you?

Apologists for bad Urban Renewal point to the Kroc Center or Library as examples of how the LCDC has benefited everyone. But the Kroc Center was won by a public-private partnership with the City, not the LCDC. Further, there is no mention of the Kroc Center in the LCDC’s plan. Ditto for the City Library, which also was not mentioned in the LCDC’s plans. Together, those would have been good achievements for any Urban Renewal Agency, but those two examples are afterthoughts when it comes to the LCDC.

What about jobs? The LCDC claims that they’ve brought in over 1200 jobs. But they don’t mention how many are temporary construction jobs, how many are entry-level commercial jobs, or how many were actually brought in by Jobs Plus. In fact, the LCDC’s plan doesn’t mention jobs anywhere! Contrast this with Post Falls, where the URD was designed to bring in jobs and has successfully brought in over 3,000 quality jobs.

So has the LCDC spent your money well? And how much money of yours have they spent? I’ll describe in my next post how the LCDC raises your taxes, especially your taxes in the City of Coeur d’Alene. Then, in the third installment of this article, I’ll include an interactive calculator which you can use to determine how much extra in City taxes you pay because of the LCDC.