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TIF districts capture property tax revenues generated from new assessed values as a result of redevelopment investments. Those captured revenues are then reinvested in those districts to retire bond debt, fund infrastructure improvements, reimburse the district’s expenses in public improvements and other economic development.
There currently is a downtown TIF that captures revenues from the (mainly) commercial improvements to downtown. For Muncie, and Delaware County for that matter, that is the normal institution for TIF districts: commercial and industrial.
With downtown neighborhoods playing a role in the success of downtown itself, the TIF districts implemented would be (mainly) residential TIFs.
These neighborhoods would either need their own districts, an East Central TIF and an Old West End TIF, or they would be enveloped into one large district, serving both neighborhoods.
The two neighborhoods have such similarities that the latter option could be very successful.
Both neighborhoods are significantly historic neighborhoods and have similar needs when it comes to historic preservation. Both neighborhoods have seen little to no public investment from the city for the past decade with only patch work to streets and sidewalks. The latter being mainly performed by utilities when they make line replacements that cross sidewalks.
Both neighborhoods were hit hard by the demolition/deconstruction plan mentioned earlier, and both need reinvestment to successfully recover.
There are multiple stakeholders in the implementation of these TIFs and each of them can garner a win from them. Residents in the districts can know that there will be money to reinvest in their neighborhood, whether it is infrastructure or dealing with blight. Property owners will benefit from their property values improving.
Each neighborhood, while mainly residentially zoned, has checkerboard business zoning. Some of those parcels aren’t occupied and redevelopment funds improving these areas will attract businesses back to these existing parcels, eliminating the need for further spot zoning. Businesses downtown would benefit by having the eastern and western gateways to downtown improved.
The city would benefit by having funds specifically dedicated to these neighborhoods and freeing up existing general fund revenues to invest in other neighborhoods that also need reinvestments.
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