Talent Urban Renewal Agency

For almost two decades, Talent has been receiving improvements to its infrastructure care of the Urban Renewal Agency. Though a very open and public institution, many may not realize that it is actually an intentionally created program with a set of distinct goals and a lifespan.

We at the TNR certainly didn’t know any of this but we were fortunate enough to get to talk with Marla Cates, the agency’s director, about the specifics.

In 1991 the city of Talent recognized a need for improvements throughout Talent, most importantly improvements to city streets, but lacked a clear way to approach the issues. They decided to implement an Urban Renewal Agency based on models that had been in Oregon since the 1950’s.

The Urban Renewal Agency can best be described as a long term investment strategy to grow the value of a city, so one of the first steps after creating the agency was to establish the Urban Renewal Boundaries and to assess the value of the city’s assets within that area - in 1991 the value was estimated at $8 million. Considering that the property within those same boundaries is now valued at over $42 million, the decision to establish this agency appears to be of sound wisdom.
Upon its creation, a loose list of desired improvements was decided upon, with room for unexpected additions.

To date, the major projects the URA has undertaken are:
-Civic Center & New City Hall
-Front Street
-Home Street
-Historic Wagner Creek Bridge aesthetic & safety improvements
-Street light “dark sky” retrofit project
-Partial funding of Highway 99 & Rapp Road improvements
-Parking lot assistance for businesses impacted by Highway 99 expansion
-Major grant to Talent Library building expansion fund
-Main Street & rail crossing
-Old Town Park (skate park)
-Acquisition of land for Depot, skate park and civic center
-New Street
-Talent Avenue (downtown)
-John Street
-Street lights & street trees

Future projects include the West Valley View Project which is nearing the end of its fact finding phase after which engineering plans will be finalized. This is the major downtown project that has been receiving grants along with most city residents’ attention. The project was conceived out of necessity, but the public response has since shaped the project into more of a downtown makeover, though Marla is quick to point out that there are no plans to move the downtown. The project is more an effort to make sense of and generally fancify the entrance to Talent’s downtown.
Besides some street improvements, their ongoing sign and façade improvement grants and any unexpected projects, that’s it. The agency was originally given a sunset date of 2019 but has been asked to expire in 2016. According to Marla everything is on pace for that goal to be met.

‘So how is all this paid for?’ you might be asking. Well it’s complicated, but not too complicated.

Essentially, Urban Renewal is funded through tax increment financing, a sort of property tax. Every property owner within the city limits pays into Urban Renewal and the amount is found through a survey based on a calculation of assessed value within the Urban Renewal Boundary. While few people enjoy being taxed, this is a situation where at least you can literally see your tax dollars at work. In fact, they’re at work to indirectly increase the value of your property by increasing the value of the city’s property.

At the end of some incredibly complicated calculations, the URA actually was given approximately 16.8% of the City of Talent’s tax revenue in 2008. These are taxes that would have been collected anyway, but small portions are allotted from each taxing district, so when the URA sunsets in the next several years, those are funds that will be freed up for the other taxing districts to use.
Okay, maybe it is too complicated.

The short of it all is that the Agency is on schedule to complete all projects and pay off all bonds by 2016 and the City of Talent is much better for its efforts. We assure you that we will feature articles on specific projects in the future but for now, consider yourself introduced!

One rather easy to explain service that Urban Renewal provides is its Sign and Façade Improvement Grant program. If you own a commercial or Historic structure within the UR Boundary, there may be funds available for improvements on the site through an application process. Basically the URA likes to spend money to improve the look or historic value of many of the buildings in Talent. This is definitely a topic which will be further explained in the future but for now, check out Marla’s explanation in this month’s edition of The Flash.

If you’d like to learn more you are welcome to drop by the Agency’s headquarters at 102 Home St. in Talent or you can visit their website by going to www.cityoftalent.org, clicking on “City Departments” at the top of the page and then clicking on “Urban Renewal” on the left hand side of the Staff Directory page. Of course you can always call Marla at 535.6170.