Rathdrum open house on urban renewal tonight

By BRIAN WALKER

Staff Writer

RATHDRUM — The Rathdrum Urban Renewal Agency will host an open house at 6 p.m. tonight at Rathdrum City Hall on the draft plan and feasibility study for the West Rathdrum Urban Renewal District.

"The open house is not required by state law," said Leon Duce, the agency's administrator. "However, the Rathdrum Urban Renewal Agency board has made it a requirement for all urban renewal plans."

City of Rathdrum staff will give a short presentation on urban renewal in Rathdrum followed by the developers and their discussion of the proposals for the area.

After the presentations, attendees will be able to view the different project proposals. Citizens will have the opportunity to ask questions and leave comments.

All comments will be reviewed before a final plan is submitted to the Rathdrum Urban Renewal Agency.

Once the board reviews the plan and if they approve the plan, it will move forward to the Rathdrum Planning and Zoning Commission to make sure that it is in compliance with the city’s current comprehensive plan.

If, in the opinion of the Planning and Zoning Commission the plan is in compliance, then it will advance the plan to the Rathdrum City Council.

The City Council will hold a public hearing at which the public is invited to attend and make comments in regard to the plan.

After comments are made, the council will deliberate as to whether or not it will approve the plan.

The 317-acre West Rathdrum Urban Renewal District Plan is the only one that has evolved to this level.

The Silverado Urban Renewal District has not completed drafts of the plan or the feasibility study, which is still in the process.

Duce said Mayor Vic Holmes and the City Council have wanted to help create a balanced community, one that would be a place for people to live, work, shop and have fun.

The urban renewal provides an opportunity for Rathdrum to be competitive with other areas for industry to move to Rathdrum and provide local employment, he said.

Duce said Idaho competes with other states such as Texas, California and Washington for businesses to move to Idaho.

"We feel that engaging our citizens and keeping them informed we can develop a better plan together in moving forward to improve our community," Holmes said.

Urban renewal districts are an economic development tool to create jobs and spur activity with infrastructure improvements. It allows the city to be competitive with other regions to attract business, and the burden is on the developers for the district to be successful.

Urban renewal districts created by the city and administered by the URA have a base tax rate when the district is created. That base tax rate continues to be collected by the county and remitted to taxing entities over the life of the district.

As a district is improved, has new construction and increases in value due to improvements, the incremental tax created by those improvements in excess of the base tax is allocated to the URA to pay for the public improvements that have been made within the district.