Geneva council sets deadline for TIF decision

The Geneva school board has until July 18 to formally tell Geneva aldermen what sites' property taxes it wants excluded from a potential new tax-increment financing fund for part of the city's downtown.

Aldermen made it clear Monday night that they intend to wrap up their discussion of the Geneva Fox River Redevelopment Project Area proposal, and take the official votes July 25.

Rick Petesch, the school district's attorney, assured aldermen the school board would meet soon to discuss the city's offer to declare two properties — Geneva on the Dam and the Covenant Retirement Communities Geneva Place ­­— ­as “surplus” buildings. Under the terms of the intergovernmental agreement, all taxing districts, including the school district, would get all the property taxes on those structures for the 23 years of the TIF, instead of having any incremental increase diverted to the TIF fund. There would be an exception if someone proposes major redevelopment for those sites.

In a TIF district, property tax payments to taxing bodies are frozen at the current level, for up to 23 years. Any incremental increase in property taxes beyond that is put in the TIF fund, controlled by the city, to be spent on projects public and private that increase the value of properties in the district.

According to city officials, those two properties account for 29 percent of the equalized assessed valuation for all the land in the proposed TIF district, which is in the eastern downtown area.

A city memo says the school district wants closer to 49 percent.

School board member Dave Lamb told the council that school officials believe other properties that could be “surplus” are on the north side of State Street, from Route 31 to River Lane. That block includes a State Farm Insurance agency, the School of Rock music school, a women's clothing store, a law firm and the Buttermilk restaurant.

The city is under no obligation to declare any of the property in the proposed TIF district as surplus.

School representatives have disputed the city's statements about the amount of property deterioration in the proposed district, as well as the amount of vacant space, and the decline in property values relative to the decline of values in the city overall. It also pointed out that some properties, including Geneva on the Dam and Geneva Place, were in a previous TIF district that covered some of the same area, from 1982 to 2005.

The city has until Aug. 13 to approve the TIF district. If it doesn't enact it by then, it would have to have another public hearing on the matter.