Progress made on urban renewal laws
COEUR d’ALENE — The Idaho Legislature’s Interim Committee on Urban Renewal Agencies made significant progress toward updating the state’s urban renewal laws at a meeting in Boise Monday.
“I kind of think we as a committee made some progress,” Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, said after the meeting adjourned.
Souza summed up the meeting, saying the committee is likely going to look at standardizing some of the URA reporting requirements but also allowing communities to customize their URAs to fit their communities.
She said things like the board makeup, term limits and how the URAs select board members are all likely to change as well. The full committee will entertain the idea of allowing local communities to choose whether they want appointed board members or publicly elected board members.
“You will really be able to customize your (urban renewal agency) to fit your community’s needs,” Souza said.
She said the committee found consensus on a number of issues, but couldn’t quite agree on spending urban renewal taxes on public buildings.
“The things there seemed to be consensus on will be written up into draft legislation for consideration,” she said, adding the next interim committee meeting will be held Dec. 14.
“I will be out of town for that one,” she said, adding she has a long-standing family commitment that cannot be avoided.
In the meantime, however, Souza will work with two other legislators to help streamline the definitions section in two Idaho laws that deal with urban renewal. The current definitions in those laws are conflicting in some cases and they need to be clarified, Souza said.
Souza recently worked with Rep. Lance W. Clow, R-Twin Falls, to create a three-page list of possible changes to the laws. Some made it into the draft process, but others did not.
“Not all of them made it through, but the ones that I thought were most important did,” she said, adding some of the revenue sharing suggestions they made were not considered.
However, Souza said, the committee may still consider other revenue sharing ideas.
“Sharing some of the excess increment revenue may be considered,” she said. “It is very conceptual right now, but it may make it into the draft legislation for our consideration.”
She said it will include other things like standardizing the conflict of interest disclosure forms, and possibly requiring more specific information on the agencies to be published online.
She said the committee also discussed creating a URA repository for information on all URAs in the state.
“Some felt standardizing the format of the website might be a good idea as well,” she said, adding she felt the day was productive and resulted in a good balance of standardizing some functions of the URAs and allowing other functions to be customized to fit communities.