Pocatello City Council to discuss potential Northgate TIF Thursday

When the Pocatello City Council meets on Thursday, Buck Swaney of Millennial Development Partners, one of the groups behind the Northgate project, will explain why he believes the city should make the area a TIF (tax increment financing) district.

If approved, making the development TIF would keep taxes flowing to the normal taxing districts, such as the county and city, but the increment or increase in taxes would go straight to the urban renewal agency.

“In this case, the Pocatello Development Authority, in order to fund projects that are outlined in the urban renewal plan, which we end up calling the TIF plan,” Interim Executive Director of the Pocatello Development Authority, Melanie Gygli, explained.

It’s a move the city has approved four times recently, North Yellowstone being the best example, according to Gygli.

“That includes properties that Costco is on, Lowe’s, that area.”

Set up in 2004 and amended in 2007, the TIF money went towards rebuilding the roads in that area.

“Where Hurley, the roundabout, those kind of costs were covered,” she said.

TIF plans are, as mandated by law, set up on 20-year plans. In the case of the North Yellowstone district, the city is planning to close the TIF this year, just ten years in.”

“I think it’s a really good example of how TIF can work. It allowed us to get in and do some improvement that brought the businesses in behind it or with it,” Gygli said.

Some of the concerns surrounding the plan include people thinking it will bring about a rise in their taxes. This is not the case.

“It’s not that anyone in a tax increment financing district pays anymore, they don’t,” Gygli said, explaining that they continue to pay the same levies that everyone else does.

“What happened is what was already out there was taxed at one point, without the TIF district the question is would it have happened at all?”

Gygli said that the other TIF areas in Pocatello, such as the one on North Yellowstone, have set examples of how it could work. Now, she said, it’s up to the City Council.

“I think this is an important opportunity for the city and I’m sure it’s something that the City Council will weigh carefully.”

Partners of Millennial Development Partners were not immediately available for comment Wednesday.