Committee unanimous in passing RDA overhaul

With little debate, Sen. Curt Bramble's long-awaited RDA overhaul bill passed unanimously out of committee Friday.

The measure, SB196, is the product of a yearlong task force and has support from city and county representatives, the Utah Taxpayers Association and education interests. It allows municipalities to undertake three types of RDA projects with restrictions on scope, impact and money used to fund the project.

"I think private property rights are pretty important," said Bramble, R-Provo. "This is the work product of many, many, many hours of tough negotiations between competing interests."

Under the legislation, three types of redevelopment agency projects can be undertaken: economic development, urban renewal and community development. With community development, a group like a school district can choose to have its tax increment go toward an RDA project.

With economic and urban renewal, two-thirds of a taxing entity committee must agree to shift tax increment to a project.

What makes an RDA controversial is that it allows a city to take taxes away from groups like schools, counties and others and put it toward a redevelopment project. A handful of cities have been said to have abused this power, giving the tax increment to woo a developer or big-box project.

Bramble say's he's confident his measure will eliminate any abuses. Monday, a state audit of RDA projects will be released — the measure "resolves the majority of findings in the audit," said Bramble.

Randy Sant, RDA director for Sandy city, said cities are in total support the measure. "It does address a lot of the concerns that were outlined last year, and it keeps us in cities with a tool that is very important."

SB196 will now move to the full Senate for debate. Next week, Bramble plans to introduce a second RDA measure that will deal with abandoned industrial sites, particularly the Geneva Steel site in Utah County.

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