By Rebecca Dopp
Times-News Correspondent
Nephi City council members considered and approved an ordinance creating the Nephi City Community Reinvestment Agency.
Agencies under that name and that classification are created under the authority of the state legislature, said Randy McKnight, city administrator.
"The purpose of those agencies are to help local governments address problems and opportunities where there is underdeveloped or unproductive land in the community and try to make improvements or facilitate development in those areas," he said.
The boundaries of the agency are the same as the boundaries of the city, and the mayor and city council serve as the board of directors of the agency.
McKnight said that once the agency is created it can create project areas within the boundaries to allow specific analysis and planning to overcome challenges that have kept those areas from being successfully developed in the past.
"Among the tools that the legislature has authorized the agency to use to implement such a plan for a specific area of the community are tax-increment financing and local point-of-sale sales tax distributions that can be used to help improve a specific project area over a fixed, pre-determined amount of time," he said. "The goals of those specific areas would be job creation, increase tax base, or enhance quality of life."
Typically, financing plans will be implemented subject to inter-local agreements between the agency and the local taxing entities. Some specific types of projects, in order to be financed, would require the creation of a specific taxing committee, said McKnight. But, for the most part, the types of projects that Nephi City would look at would be able to be worked out with other taxing entities on a cooperative agreement basis.
"The state statute sets forth the specific powers of the agency," he said.
The council was asked to review and and approve the ordinance that would create the new agency.
Mayor Mark Jones said that the city would have more options if they created this new agency.
Once the agency was created, projects within the specific areas would be individually selected and processed. Without the agency, that would not be an option, said Greg Rowley, council member.
Larry Ostler, council member, asked where the funding would come from for the projects. McKnight said that the funding resources that would be available are designated in the state law and not the type of setting where outside funding would come to do a project.
"It's where we get our heads together and decide what's the best way to apply the resources that we have or that would be generated if there is successful development in a project in order to facilitate that," McKnight said.
The council approved the new ordinance that would adopt Title I, Chapter 12 of the Municipal Code to provide for community development and renew, as set forth in state law, severability and providing an effective date.
