Journal article.
By Sean Olson, ABQ Journal
City councilors on Monday narrowly shot down a bill to limit incentives the city could use in certain tax increment development districts.
The tax districts allow developers to divert sales and property taxes that would have gone to the city from within a district to pay for roads and other infrastructure.
Opponents said at the meeting that the council already has the ability to confirm or deny an application for the tax districts on a case-by-case basis. The legislation would have only limited the council's ability to find more economic opportunities for taxpayers, they said.
"I think this slams the door shut to (prospective companies)," Councilor Ken Sanchez said at the meeting Monday.
Proponents said the bill would have simply established guidelines for district applications— saving resources for both taxpayers and developers.
Councilor Rey Garduño said that guidelines are set by the council often to save time. He used land-use issues as an example.
"Can you imagine if we had to examine every single zoning issue?" Garduño said.
The measure would not have affected districts inside the 1979 city boundaries, districts in a metropolitan redevelopment area— an urban rehabilitation project, for example— or districts already approved by the council.
In the remaining parts of the city:
Developers would only have been able to divert property taxes.
Diversion of those taxes would have been capped at 33 percent of the total collected. Residential developments would not have been eligible for a district.
The council rejected the bill on a 5-4 vote, with Sanchez, Trudy Jones, Don Harris, Brad Winter and Sally Mayer voting against the measure. Garduño, Michael Cadigan, Isaac Benton and Debbie O'Malley voted for it.
Some of the councilors said they saw the legislation as an affront to their ability to intelligently analyze future applications for the districts.
Jones said she found it "offensive."
"It is almost as if we can't be trusted if we don't pass this legislation," Mayer said.
Cadigan, who sponsored the bill along with Benton and Garduño, said it was not meant to be offensive. It was meant to remind the city not to "succumb to temptations," such as the promise of new jobs, that might not be delivered by a developer, Cadigan said.
Benton warned the council to not think of the districts as the only way to ensure planned growth on the fringes of the city— one of the benefits of the districts touted by supporters.
"I think that's a failure of planning policy," Benton said.
Councilors passed similar legislation late last year, but it was vetoed by Mayor Martin Chávez.
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