{"id":20909,"date":"2017-02-28T17:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T23:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=20909"},"modified":"2017-02-28T17:00:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T23:00:57","slug":"tif-constitutional-amendment-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=20909","title":{"rendered":"TIF constitutional amendment proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Urban Affairs Committee heard testimony Feb. 28 on a proposed constitutional amendment to extend certain repayment times related to tax increment financing (TIF).<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Justin Wayne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LR16CA, introduced by Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, would place a proposed constitutional amendment on the November 2018 general election ballot. The amendment would authorize the Legislature to extend the maximum repayment period for TIF indebtedness from 15 to 20 years if more than half of the property in a project area was designated as extremely blighted.<\/p>\n

If voters approve the constitutional amendment, Wayne said, lawmakers can define extremely blighted through enabling legislation \u2014\u00a0possibly using federal Housing and Urban Development Promise Zones, neighborhood revitalization districts, enterprise zones or other criteria.<\/p>\n

Wayne said that many surrounding states have longer standard repayment periods, which he said can serve as an incentive to focus developers on extremely blighted areas of cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re behind the ball when it comes to TIF and how we use it as a tool to attract economic development,\u201d Wayne said.<\/p>\n

Dave Landis, urban development department director for the city of Lincoln, testified in support of the bill. TIF is essential for urban development he said, particularly in the most blighted areas where developers need an incentive to tear down existing, dilapidated structures.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou incentivize the market, reduce their risk and make something attractive that otherwise was not attractive,\u201d Landis said.<\/p>\n

Ken Bunger, testifying on behalf of the North Platte Area Chamber of Commerce and Development Corporation, also supported the bill. Developers that take on extremely blighted areas often have less capital to work with, he said, and an extra five years to pay back a TIF debt could reduce the risk that a bank would not support such a project.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything that you can do to reduce that risk and provide for some additional coverage \u2013 in this case, additional time \u2013 would be welcome,\u201d Bunger said.<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition to the measure and the committee took no immediate action on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Urban Affairs Committee heard testimony Feb. 28 on a proposed constitutional amendment to extend certain repayment times related to tax increment financing (TIF).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-20909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-urban-affairs","tag-sen-justin-wayne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20909"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20911,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20909\/revisions\/20911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}