Kuna moves closer to establishing urban renewal district

Kuna could establish an urban renewal district as soon as January, which city officials and some residents hope will allocate money for a list of local improvement projects.

Kuna’s economic development department and other partners held a community workshop Aug. 27 to share the status of the developing urban renewal district and to further gather local input on desired improvement projects, from transportation to “greenfield” development. These projects “are not shovel-ready,” said Lisa Bachman, with J-U-B engineers, a company that is assisting in the potential Kuna urban renewal district development.

“These are just projects that have come out of the community that still need to go through the approval process,” she said during the Aug. 27 workshop.

The next steps for the urban renewal district (called Kuna West District) are for a plan — incorporating community feedback — to be approved by the planning and zoning commission, then by the city council, which workshop leaders said could take place at the upcoming November meeting. A current and evolving draft plan is available at kunacity.id.gov/518/Kuna-Urban-Renewal-Agency.

If approved then, the designated urban renewal district account could start receiving the dollars from increased property value “increments” within the district beginning early next year. Urban renewal does not raise property taxes, workshop organizers said.

“If you still have comments, we want to hear them,” Lisa Holland, economic development director for The City of Kuna, said during the Aug. 27 workshop. “There have been some expectations where urban renewal was not used correctly in some cities. We want to make sure if we do it, we do it right.”

Those with comments or questions can contact Holland at 208-559-5926 or [email protected]. The urban renewal agency is scheduled to review and finalize the draft of the plan Sept. 16. More information is available at kunacity.id.gov/518/Kuna-Urban-Renewal-Agency

Keeping money in, adding value to Kuna

For years the Kuna community has desired an overpass that would bypass trains coming and going on the Union Pacific Railroad, and money from the urban renewal district could help to fund such a project.

The list of desired community improvements does not stop there. Other desired improvements include, but are not limited to:

• Roadway intersection improvements, such as at Kay and Avalon streets
• 4th Street Gym redevelopment
• Public parking and/or recreation facilities, such as at Stroebel and Kuna roads near Indian Creek
• Extension of Highway 69 to Indian Creek to provide access to future commercial and/or industrial properties/developments

The entire list can be found at: kunacity.id.gov/518/Kuna-Urban-Renewal-Agency

Additionally, the Kuna community has desired more local job opportunities and entertainment/recreation options, which, city officials say, could come with attracted business development. Approximately 93% of people who live in Kuna leave the city to work, Holland said, and almost $175 million of potential local revenue is lost when residents leave Kuna to shop and dine out.

To help entice businesses to establish in Kuna, water, sewer and other utility infrastructure could be expanded within the boundaries of the urban renewal district.

Once those businesses come, and the value of their properties increases, the city would take the dollars of the increased value and put it into a designated fund (money from the urban renewal district). This would complement other financial tools the city uses to ensure “growth pays for itself,” such as through impact fees.

“The hope is eventually we can get some more professional offices, we can get some shopping centers, we can get some entertainment options, maybe some light industrial — not the heavy, smoke-stack type of industrial — restaurants, hotels, those kinds of things,” Holland said. “We would like to have more of those opportunities in Kuna so we can be a self-sustaining community.”

The city is in the process of analyzing potential costs of the proposed projects as part of the feasibility study within the plan, Holland said. The numbers in the feasibility study are estimates that will be used to help capture the future value of the district and the feasibility of which projects could be funded, she added.

Community feedback will help organize the list of priorities, Holland said. How soon and which projects get funded will also depend on “when the district has funds available for projects, what specific need is highest at that point in time,” and how partnership from support agencies will play a role.

“I think, overall, we’ve got some good community responses,” Holland told Idaho Business Review after the workshop. “Overall they’ve been positive. Most of it fell in line with what we have been hearing over the last couple of years.”

It could take three to five years for there to be sufficient funds for projects. The urban renewal district, if approved, could be active for 20 years.

City officials hosted a workshop last year to explore urban renewal and other development funding options. Community Improvement District funding is still a possibility, and that would depend on the project, Holland said. Avimor in Boise is one example of development that occurred through Community Improvement District funding.

The city will also pursue obtaining available grant funding.

“We’ll keep our options open as we go,” Holland said. “We’re trying to be as transparent as possible.”

Holland said, legally, the city is not required to gather public input, but chose to, to ensure the urban renewal district was “done the right way,” to be used as a tool to help public and private partnerships take place.

Currently, those partnerships have not been established yet, Holland told Idaho Business Review after the workshop.

“I’d say that’s something we pursue in the future,” she added.