The Shawano Common Council on Wednesday will consider creating a Tax Incremental Finance district aimed at spurring development along East Green Bay Street.
The proposed district would run from County Road BE to Lincoln Street, but would zigzag around sufficiently developed properties.
“We would be gerrymandering around properties that are not in need of assistance,” City Administrator Brian Knapp said at a Finance Committee meeting Monday.
TIF districts are areas where municipalities invest in infrastructure, such as sewer and water, to attract development where it might not otherwise occur, or to make improvements, such as eliminating blight.
Whatever increase in tax revenue that results from development in those districts goes to paying back the debt the municipality incurred from making improvements to the district.
Though the Green Bay Street TIF effort would technically be a “blight elimination district” under rules governing TIF districts, Knapp said he prefers to think of it as a redevelopment district.
Shawano has four active TIF districts: Raasch Industrial Park; a residential area targeted for blight elimination from Main Street east to Lincoln street and Zingler Avenue south to Pearl Avenue; a downtown TIF district running from the Main Street bridge south to Sunset Avenue; and the Bay Lakes Industrial Park.
Other taxing entities — including Shawano County, the Shawano School District and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College — would have to approve of the idea, because they would not share in any additional revenue from new development in the district until the improvements are paid off.
Any proposed changes to the TIF district plans will go before a Joint Review Board made up of representatives of the city and the other taxing entities.
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