Value Capture Webinar Series

>> OPERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending Value Capture Strategies and Special Assessment Districts. All participants are in a listen-only mode. At this time, I will turn it over to Kate Flaherty.

>> KATE FLAHERTY: Welcome to today's webinar on Value Capture Strategies and Special Assessment Districts. My name is Kate Flaherty with the USDOT Volpe center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I will be facilitating today's webinar. The welcome Senator will run two hours until 3:00 p.m. eastern time. We are recording today's webinar. The speaker slide will be available toward the end of the web are Na. If you need confirmation of the event, we will provide information how to do that at the end of the webinar. Now, in the top left corner of the screen you will find audio call-in information in case you want to listen by phone instead of through your computer speakers. If you decide to use your phone to listen to today's event you will be able to ask questions verbally. Unfortunately, we won't be able to take questions verbally by those participating in the computer but use the chat to submit comment. We should have time for additional Q&A during the webinar. We will post additional responses along with the webinar recording on the Website. To view close, add captioning click on the CC icon on the bar along the top of the page and click show captions from the dropdown menu.

And before we begin, I would like to ask the audience to fill out the poll questions that are now being shown on the screen. These are simply to help us under the makeup of the audience today, and baseline level of knowledge about the topics that will be covered today. As you answer the poll questions, I'll introduce our first presenter.

Rick Rybeck is an attorney with master's degree in real estate and urban development. Rick served 12 years as Associate Director for policy and planning at District of Columbia Department of Transportation. Since 2009 he has been Director of Just Economics LLC that helps communities harmonize incentives with policy objectives for job creation, affordable housing, and sustainable development.

For the past several years, Rybeck has been at FHWA as subject matter expert on value capture. Rick is the author of the primer on special assessment district pup accomplished in 2021, we'll make that available for download toward the end of the webinar.

Thank you for taking the poll. Looks like most people are from local government at 23 percent followed by -- story, most people are state DOT at 29 percent followed by local government and MPOs, Federal agency, transit agencies, as well as other organizations.

Just looking at experience with other value capture webinars at FHWA, we have a healthy mix return of attendees at 58 percent, welcome back. Welcome to our first timers as well.

Does your jurisdiction have special assessment district. 29 percent are saying yes. A fair amount is not sure. This will hopefully be a really informative webinar and you'll be able to explore that in your local areas.

With your current level of knowledge on special assistant district, looks like we have a lot of people with what knowledge, somewhat knowledge -- who are somewhat knowledgeable, or I've heard of it but don't know very much, with a few very knowledgeable. Hopefully we'll get some good information today that you're able to take away that's helpful, helpful to you.

Has your jurisdiction ever used value capture revenues as matching fund for Federal or state grants. Most people are saying they don't know. That's totally fine. We have about 20 percent saying no, 15 percent saying yes, and some saying they are considering it, so that's really interesting to hear.

So, anyway, thank you for taking that poll. So, yeah, Rick, please go-ahead Rick, are you on the line?

>> RICK RYBECK: Hi, I think I'm here now. Rick Rybeck today we'll' talk about special assessments and business improvement sections also known as BIS.

So, this is an outline of the presentation that was first delivered in August of 2021. In today's presentation, we'll only cover the highlights so we can hear more from practitioners about their real-world experiences. However, the links will be available to download the link, the primer or listen to the presentation from 2021.

What is a special assessment, special assessments are funded to fund state and local infrastructure projects, BIS, are also funded by special assessments. But BIS, and similar organizations are created and governed by private property owners within a framework established by local government. Unfortunately, special assessment districts and BIDs have many different names. Make sure you know your state statutes, regarding what they are called and how they work.

The concept behind session assessments is pretty simple. New or improved infrastructure, or services, provides special benefits to nearby properties above and beyond the benefits created for the general public. In particular, access to infrastructure Amenities such as roads, transit, parks, et cetera, make nearby locations more valuable. Special assessments return a portion of this particular and direct benefit to the community that created the infrastructure facilities or services.

If properly structured, beneficiaries pay in proportion to benefits received. Now, in the illustration on the left -- and let me get my pointer working here -- can you see my pointer? This represents new infrastructure, the letter M, and it's adjacent to two properties. On the left we have a vacant lot and on the right a property with a substantial building. But the benefit created by the new infrastructure is typically created in the value of land based on the increased value of the location. Therefore, both lots receive the same benefit from this improved infrastructure. If the special assessment is based on the value of the building, it is not related to the value of the infrastructure. Or the benefit received. And it discourages development in your infrastructure. Assessment against buildings encourage people to keep land vacant or underutilized. However, if the special assessment is based on value of land there's no he penalty. The assessment makes it more expensive to Holland vacant thereby encouraging development where land value is high, that's adjacent to the infrastructure to that was created to facilitate development in the first place.

So, we use special assessments. Raising funds for special assessments is arguably more efficient and equitable than general taxes. This is because special assessments create a link between the collection of funds for projects or services, and those who benefit from those improvements. A special assessment is really a fee and not a tax. By linking fees to benefits received, special assessments avoid property market distortions which could occur general taxes were used. This also provides greater transparency, because beneficiaries being charged, and they can relate their payments to the benefit they received from particular facilities or services. This enhances accountability and builds trust. The administration of special assessments is efficient because it takes advantage of the existing property tax administration system

Application: Special assessment districts initiated by government are used for infrastructure benefits that benefit some properties more than others. It could be a single property or many properties within a defined area. Special assessments are used for a variety of capital projects, they include streets, bridging, sidewalks, parking facilities, transit stations, street walk, stormwater, et cetera, the key element the projects direct benefits from nearby properties that are extinct to provide benefit for the entire community.

Now, as we mentioned, business improvement districts are privately initiated special assessment districts. And in that context of BIDs, special assessments can be used for operating as well as capital expenses. However, as previously mentioned BIDs are initiated and operated by private property owners.

So, how do we establish them? There are six primary steps. Every state, including D.C. and Puerto Rico have a way of creating special assessments. Question No. 1, does your project create a special and direct benefit for some properties over others.

Second, you must identify those properties that received a special benefit and define the district boundaries.

Three, define any exclusions of properties within the district that don't benefit. And four, define the fee as based on project cost or project benefit.

Five, establish a termination date, and, finally, enact the implementing legislation or ordinance.

Let's look at that in a little more detail. Does a project create a special benefit to nearby property owners if it's not available to the general public. Typically, jurisdictions are allowed -- I'm sorry, typically jurisdictions allowed by a state to collect property taxes also allowed to collect special assessments. So, check the special assessment enabling statute in your state to ensure that the jurisdiction or level of government undertaking the project is authorized to Levy a special assessment.

Identify the properties receiving the benefit. Where are the properties that receive the special and direct benefit? Typically, but not always these benefitting properties are close to the facility or service being provided.

Next, define the boundaries. On the left, you'll see an illustration of the City of Suffolk which created a route 17 special tax district for the purpose of paying the debt service for enhanced road improvements in the district and to foster economic development in the route 17 corridor.

In this situation, real estate professional as can be very helpful in determining the geographic extent of project benefits in order to set district boundaries. On the right, you see the City of, or part of the city in Alaska which extended water and sewer lines to properties outlined in red, establishing the special assessment boundary was very easy here, it was simply limited to those properties serviced by the new extension.

Finally, define exclusions or exemptions. As mentioned before, some properties might be close to an improvement but not receive special benefit. A good example is a municipal parking facility. Retail establishments within walking distance will get the most benefit from this facility. Residential and industrial land uses nearby, will likely receive little or no benefit. Therefore, these properties might be exempt from liability for special assessment, even if they in close proximity of the facility, and within its geographic benefit zone or district.

Now, we have to talk about how to establish the fee. For some activities there may be a fixed cost. For example, water or sewer hookups or installing a curb cut, probably costs the same each and every time did is done. So, for these activities a fee schedule can be developed, and individual property owners simply pay the fee to get a permit for the work or have the work performed. There could be a variable cost, too. So, for example, sidewalk construction has a fixed cost per linear foot. But the length of sidewalk will vary from project to project. The total cost could be paid by charging each owner, abutting the project, their proportionate share based on the distance, or front feet of construction along their property. And finally, could be a variable benefit. For example, properties within a fixed district from the new highway interchange or transit station, might be assessed a share of cost based on their benefits.

Properties slightly farther away could be assessed a somewhat smaller fee based on the benefit owing to the greater distance and still it could be determined the interchange or transit system was too far away to provide any direct benefits and at that point no special assessment would be collected.

Establishing the termination date. If a special assessment is established upon a capital project, termination is typically determined to be the date when specified capital costs such as payment on debt service on a bond had been completed. Alternatively, if the special assessment fund ongoing operating cost like for a business improvement district, there might still be a sunset or determination date but typically within w an option for renewal.

Notifying the public and adopting an ordinance. Special assessment enabling legislation, and rules governing adoption of local legislation will determine the types of public notices and hearings required prior to enactment of special assessments. Some jurisdictions require vote by affected property owners. The state enabling statute will indicate what approval criteria are required.

Once the special assessment district is created, there should be an explanation of it provided on any invoice's tax bills or other requests or payment, so property owners understand why they are being charged.

In the original presentation, we went into more detail about setting the fee, but we gave the broad outline above, so, we'll skip that today. In terms of administration, it's pretty easy to collect the standard fee for a fixed -- for a standard activity fixed fee. You simply collect it when you're issuing a permit. For the variable cost, or variable benefit fee, properties are identified, either individually or by district as mentioned above. Property owners should be allowed to appeal their designation as being within the district. The surcharge formula will be applied annually until the district is terminated. Selection occurs via standard property tax billing procedure, and here, the people who collect the revenue must pay special attention because the special assessment fee received must be segregated from the regular property tax revenues. And those special assessment fees must be deposited, either to an account dedicated for the capital project, or to the business improvement district account as required.

Finally, for enforcement, special assessments are typically liened against the property, because owners don't like having liens against their property, compliance is almost universal, and enforcement is typically very easy.

Legal or regulatory issues. As mentioned above, a special assessment is not a tax. A tax is a compulsory payment required from the individuals or businesses or property, to support and carry on the legitimate functions of government. But there is no direct relationship between the taxes paid, and the benefits received.

On the other hand, a special assessment is a fee, and a fee, while it is also a compulsory payment, unlike a tax, a fee is compensation for a particular service or facility. It's more like a price.

Financing, special assessments can pay for a facility or service on a pay as you go basis. However, if costs for capital improvements exceed the cash flow, special assessments can be used to finance these improvements. The key here is that the useful life of the capital assets could exceed the term of the financing.

And now, here are a couple of examples. This is a rural example, in the 1800s, Californians believed they could enhance agriculture by bringing water to fertile but Arid valleys. The Wright act of 1896 enabled the creation and operation of the irrigation districts. Initially these irrigation districts were funded by users' fees Levied on the aim of water withdrawn from the candle. Once the canals went into operation the district operators noticed something. Nearby landowners became enormously wealthy, because previously worthless land became valuable because of the proximity to the canal. But they paid nothing to the district because they were not forming anything o withdrawing water. So, Wright act required assessments based on the value of all land benefits from proximity to canals nearby towns were assessed. Revenues increased and were more equitably distributed among all beneficiaries.

The owners of uncultivated land suddenly owed large fees to the irrigation district. They needed to raise money from which to pay the fees, as a result the special assessments motivated intense cultivation of nearby land and land served by irrigation district became some of the most intensively cultivated land in the country.

So, here's some of the things to remember between the difference of taxes and fees. Typically, taxes deter production, but special assessment fees can motivate production.

Now an urban example. Many of you heard about transit-oriented development. This example is about development-oriented transit. When the DC Metrorail system was initially constructed the next station was Rhode Island avenue, about two miles away. But no station was built in between because it was a derelict industrial area with very few Holmes or places of employment. Yet, in the 1990s, some years later, the districts downtown were booming and some landowners in this area wanted to put up office buildings, so they applied for building permits and their building permit requests were denied. The landowners were puzzled.

So, here's -- I'm going to start my pointer again. So, here is a picture of part of D.C. This is the White House in the lower left corner if you can see the curser. This is Pennsylvania avenue, this is the north end of the capitol, this is union station, and these are the railroad tracks, and this is Rhode Island avenue. This is a two-mile distance. The vacant landowners were in this area. This is where they wanted to put in office buildings pretty close to union station and this is where the permits were denied.

Let me give you a closer view. Again, look at all of the vacant land here, vacant land here, vacant land here. Vacant -- this is surface parking here, surface parking here, surface parking here. Lots of vacant land. Particularly west of the tracks. Now, with the landowners asked the permit office why their permits were denied, the permit office gave the following explanation: Said the only access to these buildings would be off of Florida avenue, or New York avenue, or north capital street and all of these arterials already overloaded with traffic, and it would be very irresponsible for us to load more traffic on to these streets. However, we can't help but notice that the Metrorail transit service returns right alongside here, and if only there was a nearby station, we would reconsider.

Global landowners set up a meeting with the district department transportation and requested a new Metrorail station be built at that location in between union station, Rhode Island avenue.

So, I happen to be at that meeting, and I told the landowners that we would love a station there, but D.C. was broken. All of the spending was subject to a congressionally appointed patrol board. Furthermore, if the Metrorail was created in this area in here their land values would skyrocket. So, if the landowners wanted new metro stations, they would have to help pay for it.

While the landowners looked very unhappy, and meeting ended abruptly. Several months went by without any communication to DDOT. Suddenly out of the blue came an announcement that landowners offered 29 million dollars for a new metro station in this New York and Florida avenue area.

So, I'll breeze through this because I already covered this.

So, a special assessment district was created by legislation. The district sold a $25 million bond and landowners paid it off over 20 years through special assessments. Because the property was within the special assessment, was mostly vacant land, the special assessment is Levied almost entirely on land value, thus a special assessment returned land values being created by a new transit station on nearby property.

In a separate transaction, landowners also paid for the construction of new streets, the extension of M street and second street. Because these streets did not connect to the street grid, and they primarily served as access to adjacent property them.

Here again is a map how things looked in the late 1990s. This is where N street terminated, right at this point, if the station was built over here, we needed to extend the street. But because of the railroad tracks, N street would be this one block extension, and really wouldn't provide a street grid connection but it primarily served these properties. We got them to pay for it and this one block extension of second street right in here.

So, again, this is 1990s, vacant land. This is what this area looked like just one year ago. Only 20 years later, almost all of that vacant land has been developed. This area here is under construction, and there's actually been a lot of development even on the east side of the tracks, where old obsolete buildings were torn down and new development occurred.

So, the main thing to rear is that if D.C. had paid for the total cost of the new station, many landowners might have simply left their land vacant and waited for land values to rise even higher, but because they were paying a special assessment, they could not afford to sit and wait. They needed to get revenue which to pay the assessment and this motivated prompt development of the vacant site.

So, special assessments, if proper properly structured to return publicly created land values to the communities that create them. By internalizing this economic externality. Special assessments enhance equity and economic productivity while encouraging more compact and sustainable land use. This con includes my presentation. My contact information is here, if you need it, Pepper, or Kate, will you introduce the next speaker?

>> Kate: Sure, thank you for that presentation, it was a great presentation, and really interesting, great information.

I'm not seeing any questions in the chat, but I'll give just a moment to see if anyone has any questions for Rick, wetter on the phone or by the chat

>> RICK RYBECK: If no questions occur, I'm happy to proceed to the next speaker.

>> Kate Flaherty: Sure. At the end or after each presentation, feel free to put whatever questions you have in the chat.

Okay, going to our next presentation, our next presenter will be Amanda Ohlensehlen, she's been Director for economic vitality for the City of Springfield since March 2022. The department provides wide range of services and markets. Of the city -- markets assets to targeted audiences to attract businesses in the region. The department aligns goal toss carry out city priorities to ensure low poverty, affordable options for housing and allows people to participate in quality-of-life endeavors. Amanda recently received as community and development manager for the City of new burn, North Carolina. Amanda directed economic and community development programs, launched workforce development initiatives, has done resiliency planning and community advocacy. Her work has cultivated partnerships to leverage grant funding, implementing strategic construction projects and social programming to support the local free. Amanda earned master's in science in sustainable tourism in east Karen Laine University and Bachelor of Science with emphasis in marketing from University of Missouri.

Amanda, welcome, please go ahead.

>> AMANDA OHLENSEHLEN: Good afternoon, everyone, my name is Amanda Ohlensehlen. As mentioned, I'm Director of economic vitality for the City of Springfield in Missouri. Today I'll share our department utilizes economic development to support a vibrant community where people improve quality of life. Particularly I will be sharing how our city utilized special assessment districts to facilitate investment or large impact projects.

The City of Springfield is located within southwest Missouri and is the third largest city in the state behind St. Louis and Kansas City. Of the city's population is approximately 170,000 but has a daytime population of over a quarter million. Springfield metro population is 475,000 and experienced strong growth in the past decade.

Springfield serves as regional economic hub supporting a large labor shed with strong institutional presence and top employment sectors that include health care, retail, manufacturing, education, and government. We are known for entrepreneurs, including the home of Bass Pro Shops, with granddaddy store and wonders of wildlife aquarium as well as O'Reilly auto parts.

The City of Springfield relies heavily on sales tax to fund vital services such as police and fire operations. In Springfield approximately 62 percent of revenue in the general fund comes from sales and use tax. Year-to-date sales tax revenues up about 9.2 percent for the city, compared to our budget through concern compared to last year through our budget through June of 2023.

On a fiscal year-to-date basis, our actual revenues are nearly 51 million, and the trend over the last 12 months actually reflects those revenues up nearly 12 percent compared to budget.

Sin the City of Springfield relied so heavily on sales and use tax as primary revenue source for its general fund it is very important for our department to focus on strategies to help preserve our tax pace. It could also leave our city vulnerable in vulnerable market conditions as inflation increases and spending flows, this situation may be different than other communities and member on this call that rely heavily on property tax base, and this sets the framework for this presentation where I highlight the use of special taxing districts and assessing districts for retail attraction and commercial activity center.

The city recently adopted a new comprehensive plan which serves as our road map for the next 20 years. It will help guide sustainable development and redevelopment for the city. The north star is quality of place with a focus on the physical development of the city to engage and create more livable and overall, more desirable city for people to live, work, and play.

Particularly, the plan outlines goals to support a vital economy, forward SGF is not regulatory but provides a vision for the city to elevate standards to facilitate sustained growth. The Department of Economic vitality was established to elevate importance and prominence. Economic development functions of the city and ensure we are taking a more holistic approach to meet the need of the community. We seek to create a sustainable economic climate that costers low poverty, offers affordable options for quality housing and wage levels that allow the opportunity for people to participate in quality-of-life endeavors.

As mentioned, the Department of Economic vitality is fairly new, formed about two years ago. So, we can be more proactive in these endeavors and operate the economic development function from the more regulatory arm of planning and development department, where these functions were previously housed. The department also aligned with City Council priorities which have the headings of economic vitality, quality of place, legislative engagement. Fiscal sustainability and public safety.

The City of Springfield is somewhat constrained in its ability to grow, in more of a redevelopment mode, as we look at forward SGF in our framework for the next 20 years. We have more brown field opportunity than Greenfield consider the boarder has suburban ring around it with smaller municipals abutting the urban service area. Our department price a direct connection to the business community to strategically market and supply targeted use of economic development incentives for big impact projects while considering the most flexible and strategic use of all incentive tools. We help ensure that we are striving to get proactive investments in public infrastructure, to occur in areas with the highest potential for development and redevelopment, much like the example in D.C. previously, are some of our existing sites being utilized in their highest and best use.

We have a robust toolbox of incentives authorized within the state of Missouri and Springfield has an incentive policy manual which guides the deployment of available programs.

Today, I'll be providing an overview of how special assessment districts work in our city and how we have successfully used these to facilitate growth. It carefully used these programs can help maintain and build employment opportunities, eliminate blight, increase property tax space, increase revenues, and support public everybody prompts one of the widest uses are community improvement districts.

I highlighted the legislation within the statutes. CIDs are non-profit corpses or separate subdivisions of the state. A CID may be created for the purpose of issuing bond, Levying taxes, and applying special assessments to finance public improvement. Public service or blight removal within a defined area. The petition outlines what sorts of activities revenues can be spent on during the duration of the district.

I noticed a question in the chat earlier and sometimes these districts, within their petition, could outline maintenance as an available -- as a cost.

Currently the City of Springfield has 19 CIDs, and these have been established for a variety of different reasons to help overcome unique challenges within the district. Later in the presentation I'll share an example how these districts have supported retail growth in development or redevelopment of shopping areas within the city. We have two separate active CIDs within our downtown and commercial street areas, in center city Springfield. The downtown district includes a sales tax on retail sales and special assessment on all properties within the district. The city has convention and entertainment district CID which helps pay off debt for the city's Expo center. In our case the tool has been very flexible and may encompass agreement of a lot of property owners, such as in our downtown district or maybe more specific to one particular developer or property owner.

Additionally, we have transportation development act in the state of Missouri and this function differently than CIDs. According to the TDD act, they are approved in Circuit Court and typically City Council's only interaction with TDD is approval of the transportation project and agreement of the TDD as local transportation authority. They have been used been college station downtown to provide mixed use development including a parking garage and part of larger development that income paused retail commercial office and housing units and movie theater. The city has interactive map on the Website operating all TDD and CIDs within the boundaries. It helps consider the judicious use of incentives and helps work with developers to ensure they construct public improvement to support the city's economic base and these benefits will not occur or be substantially reduced if incentive is not provided. But for the incentive, the project would not happen.

Finally, we have the use of neighborhood development districts within our city, and these are designed to finance public improvements that benefit the district through assessments on properties and like the other tools require agreement of majority of property owners. However, NIDs are not separate political subdivisions. They are established in a different way within our state by either an election, called by City Council or petition signed by two third of property owners. NIDs have been used less frequently within the stay but helped create parks in our area in the past.

As far as a few highlights and notable projects, today I'm going to focus on how the city used these tools to facilitate retail development and overcome challenges with sites that have resulted in catalytic type developments that will grow our tax base.

I believe by assessing the need of your community these tools can be flexible to overcome obstacles. The city has several recent examples utilizing a combination of economic development tools to facilitate commercial development. Particularly with the location of Costco within our city. There were key transportation improvements needed to improve site development. This was located at major intersections in the city and reimbursable expenses included rehabilitate a road recently constructed to accommodate new traffic.

While timing is not always ideal, these tools can be used in collaborative mandatory work through the challenges that the private sector faces. And in fact, the sales volume for Costco exceeded expectations and the district will be reimbursed much sooner than the allowable maximum term. One of the most notable projects is Cottle's Range district, this will facilitate construction of Buckee's travel center. The fund will reimburse the developer 9.2 million in public improvement to facilitate water service and three phase power north of interstate 44 and open up properties for development west east and north. In fact, there's approximately 1,000 additional acres that will be primed for development. And more than 500 acres is controlled by one individual property owner, and those properties have interstate frontage. So, it is a really key location for our city.

The project will have a significant public benefit, creating approximately 175, to 225 full-time jobs. These jobs will pay wants significantly higher than average and include benefits. This is particularly important for that sector within our community. It will also generate an estimated $30 million in annual taxable sales, and this $30 million reflects non-gasoline sales. The store is estimated to bring in approximately 6 million customers annually and more than 88 percent of customers will be coming from more than 20 miles away, with an average visitor spending of over $100 per visit. These are going to generate new sales tax revenues to support our general fund and primarily be individuals that otherwise may not have stopped in Springfield. So, it's a great way to capture new sales tax revenue for our city.

The City of Springfield coupled the CID with an infrastructure reimbursement agreement. First, I'll be speaking about the community improvement district. It will be a political subdivision of the state of Missouri and will have the power to impose the sales and use tax at a maximum rate of 5/8 cent or .625 percent of all sales subject to taxation. And reimburse the developer up to 5.1 million dollars for CID cost in the district boundary.

>> The district will have a life Stan of 20 years or repayment of the cost whichever occurs first and district will be governed by a five-member board of district property owners or representatives appointed by the Mayor with consent of council.

As mentioned, the City of Springfield coupled the CID with an infrastructure reimbursement agreement. This will capture half of the city's one cent and quarter sent sales taxes up to 4/8 cents for 20 years, this encompasses city's capital improvement sales tax. These incremental revenues will reimburse the developer up to 4.1 million dollars of improvements to exit 84 along interstate 84 along north Mulroy Road interchange. Extension of Buckee's, and the total tax will be 8.2 percent. It's important to note the city does not make any investment um front it's up to the performance of the district to repay these. Our policy allows for the maximum interest rate during the life of the project which is 2 points higher than the city's most reject bond rating.

The city used this model for other projects that represent a new major company entering the market, whether that's Costco, or to help facilitate the construction of the first Buckee's in the state of Missouri, for us it has been the approval of this elective additional sales tack in the form of a CID to reimburse public improvements as well as reduction of incremental revenues for the city over a period of time.

The CID cost cover -- the CID covers costs related to transportation and infrastructure improvements within the district and infrastructure reimbursement agreement, traditionally covers transportation, infrastructure improvements outside of those boundaries to make critical connections to the district, and the roadway network adjacent.

In addition, our city is also currently working through a similar incentive structure for a new shopping center involvement on the southwest side of our city along a key corridor and major intersection. The development will accommodate 130,000 square foot anchor tenant, a 50,000 square foot shopping center, and three outparcels, and while it is not a completely new company to the market, the proposed anchor tenants existing store represents the busiest by number of visitors within the state.

I mentioned earlier that our city is constrained, and in redevelopment mode, the site represents all of the engineering challenges and transportation network challenge you would expect with redevelopment, which include new turn lanes, traffic signals and connection to both the city and state transportation network. In this case the anchor tenant is concerned about adding additional sales tax for the CID and concerned that might not make them as competitive with other big box stories in the area, consider inflationary factors. Thus, the CID district will exclude or carve out the anchor parcel but will be over the rest of the development.

The city also approved an infrastructure reimbursement agreement that will encompass the sales for the entire development including the anchor store. It is estimated that the district will generate nearly 60 to $70 million in taxable sales.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you have related to the presentation, or any questions that you have in how we have utilized these different tools within our city.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you so much, Amanda. Er is I messed you up your name.

>> AMANDA OHLENSEHLEN: No, I kind of messed it up. It happens with a name that long.

>> Kate Flaherty: We had a couple questions through, and Rick and Pepper have about great answering questions in the chat, Rick, maybe I can read out some of these questions and we can expand a little bit. I'm happy to take additional questions as well.

>> RICK RYBECK: Kate, maybe we can have the operator tell us how to ask questions by phone.

>> OPERATOR: Sure, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press 1 then zero. 1 then zero for any questions or comments.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you. Likes like we had one question come in from Michael. Do you measure ROI, Amanda?

>> AMANDA OHLENSEHLEN: Yes, we do. Many of our incentives and is outlined in the incentive policy manual do call for four analyses, and so we also have other tools related to tax abatement, and so they are kind of specific outlines for how we measure returns for those particular types of projects. But generally, we do complete about four analyses for all of the incentives that we use.

>> Kate Flaherty: Okay. Thank you. Is anyone on the line for a question?

>> OPERATOR: No. There are no questions from the phone lines.

>> PEPPER SANTALUCIA: Let's proceed to the next speaker.

>> Kate Flaherty: All right. Amanda if any other questions come in, I'll direct them to you.

Our next presentation is from Kristin Winzeler. She's Deputy Director for north Fulton community improvement district. In that role she manages daily operations, and consulting team for north Fulton CID. She's a graduate of several leadership programs and served as president of the Atlantic chapter of -- make sure to mute yourself. Is the President of the Atlanta chapter women's transportation seminar. During the organization's 40th anniversary from 2021 to 2022. Miss Winzeler serves on the Chamber of Commerce and awarded rising star award in 2018. She earned master's degree in business administration from Kennesaw State University. Please go ahead.

>> KRISTIN WINZELER: Hi, everyone, thank you, Kate. Good afternoon, my name is Kristin Winzeler, I'm deputy Executive Director of the north Fulton community improvement district, or CID. Sorry if we're going to confuse you, I'm talking about a different type of CID than Amanda was talking about earlier in Springfield. We are located in Georgia. What type of CID do I work for? We're a self-taxing business district and we -- so, we are taxed, and we tax commercial property owners, so, commercial properties within our district, voluntarily pay an additional tax and we use that money to leverage for larger dollars as your partnership and we build infrastructure.

I'll go to the next slide here.

So, we are allowed to exist thanks to a constitutional amendment in Georgia that was approved in the '80s. We have a whole list of seven things we're allowed to do as part of our programming. There's a lot of different things. Wheat great, each CID within Georgia can really do whatever is needed in their area. So, for example we have some CIDs in more industrial areas, with warehousing, and they spend dollars on safety and death prevention, things like that. We have areas in transit, they spend money on transit related items and a lot that view infrastructure improve. S, mobility, transportation access, things like that. But again, you kind of guest to do what your area is in need of, so, it works out really well and each CID is a little bit different. But we all operate independently of one another. There are about 30 CIDs in the metro Atlanta area. I will say there are new CIDs popping up every day. There are 30 in metro Atlanta area. There are new CIDs being discussed. Savannah is interested in one, a guest tax I don't know if those have come around yet, but I know those are in discussion.

CIDs, I will say although they have been around for almost 30 years now, there probably have been ten or them or so that have popped up in the last ten years, or excuse me, last seven to ten years or so, they got really popular all of a sudden. We got a lot of new ones. They are scattered all over the metro Atlanta area. They are in areas where you have large concentrations of commercial properties. Again, we're not taxing anybody's house. This is all commercial real estate.

So, the north Fulton CID is who I work for. If you're familiar with Atlanta we are north of Atlanta, we hug Georgia for barrel eight miles, we're located within the cities of ail fray Da, Roswell and Milton.

Compared to other CIDs, we are somewhere in the middle, we are not the largest CID, not the smallest CID, but we've been around for almost 20 years since 2003. We are a little older than most. I will say, we are lucky in North Fulton, our values are very high, our property values. That means we have a lot of revenue which is fantastic. I will say it's not fantastic when we're building roadway projects and we have to purchase right-of-way, it's a little double edge sword when doing projects but again we have very high values, which given us more revenue to work with, and we take that revenue, and we have to spend it back within our district and that's something that Rick did a good job explaining during his presentation. The money that is taxed within this district comes back to the district. So, we are not allowed to spend money outside of our boundaries.

We can take that money and leverage it for more dollars in our partnership. Since inception in 2003 we invested 28 million dollar and brought 170 million dollars of investment to our district and that's just how much money we spent versus how much our projects have essentially cost.

So, how did we get started? We got started in a grass roots effort. Surrounding one project called west side parkway bridge replacement. This probably had a lot of difficulties. It was sitting stalled for several years. There was a Federal earmark as part of the project. The property owners were worried that we were going to use those funds and they wanted to see it get done. The property owners around the bridge and a little further out, they banded to together to form the CID. This project was very complicated. To make matters worse. Half of the bridge is in one city, and half is in a different city. Luckily, a CID, we cannot cross County lines, but we can cross city lines. We were able to encompass that area. There was federally protected. Must be two inches of water under the bridge as well as a tree frog that was very rare, the project was gotten done, they were worried about losing funding as we know, the Bain of construction projects take forever. So, we ended up stepping in and CID took it over and we were able to get it done and move forward.

The next question, we got this project done, what is next? What do we do? We did master plan called blueprint North Fulton. We're in blueprint three now. But we essentially looked at the area and figured out what are some issues and what are some needs, and we went to work. This is a few pictures of some projects beef' done in the past and some completed work. One of the biggest issues if you remember the map from earlier, we hug 400. But there's not a lot of great east-west activity by car or bike. So, pedestrians are essentially taking chances when they are on roadways. So, we wanted to change that. These are some projects that we built over the years. Really trying to build out the grid system and build out some needed connections. We've done a lot of different types of projects, we've done roadway extensions, as I said, bridge replacements, we've done two of those, we have done sidewalk extensions, we've built a lot of different landscaping, hardscaping, aesthetic improvement, you name it, anything to help increase property values and also bring on hopefully some development.

So, one of the projects I don't want to mention really quick that is shown here, the top right corner that's one of the flagship projects this encore bridge replacement and streetscape. This project, a lot of you are not familiar with North Fulton, this is an overpass over Georgia 400. And on one side of this overpass is a 12,000 feet amphitheater. On the other side is a regional mall, lots of restaurant, lots of retail, some office buildings just a very dense commercial area, but you could not get across this bridge, could you not walk across it. We did see people walking across it, but you shouldn't. It was very dangerous.

So, this bridge had to be replaced. Instead of being replaced with standard two-lane bridge, we said we want to enhance this area, encourage development, encourage walkability. We got a lot of partners together. We partnered with the Georgia Department of Transportation, we got a grant from the State Tollway Authority. Grant from Atlanta Regional Commission. Partnered with the city, the County, there are a lot of logos on this project, and it was fantastic. We got the bridge replaced. We replaced it with sidewalk, lighting, landscaping. It's aesthetically pleasing bridge so you want to walk across it. Another great feature. Georgia 400 is being widened for express lane. Currently they're working on that project. This is 2017, however we didn't want them to rebuild the bridge. So, we built it wide enough that it will accommodate thinking that want to go under it. We were able to do that as well. It was a little more expensive. It worked out in the long run, because while they were doing this project our bridge will remain intact. We had town home communities pop up while we were billing it. We had to deal with difficulties during the construction project, but we made it work. Again, a really great project, regional mall, they are looking at redevelopment opportunities creating a mixed use feel in their area, and again they were very involved in this project and look and field and experience and what we made it become. It is a really great project and one of many projects that we've done in the past to try to again build out the grid system, get people a little safer when it comes to driving walking, riding bikes. One other thing I want to say, it showed a shift at north Fulton. For a long time, our board was interested in building roadway, wanted mobility for cars and we putt sidewalk and landscaping on the projects 80 percent of the time but that was not the emphasis making our decision to move the project forward. With this project we saw the benefit of that place making. We saw the benefit of looking at multi use trails. This project also connects to the greenway, which is a huge greenway that connects two counties, four cities, along the east side of Georgia 400, and this was in the City of Alpharetta. But there was no way to get to it. So, we created that connection as part this project and then future projects, continued to look at those connections, look at walkability. Look at place making. It was a shift in our thinking, we've been around 20 years, there's always changes being made. It was exciting.

Another thing we're looking at North Fulton, we have some transit service. Again, if you're familiar with Atlanta, Atlanta has Marta which is a fantastic service. But it is heavy rail station stops just south of us, so we start at exit 8 it stops below exit 6. So, we do have bus service, which is great, however, when we really looked at the service we had, we had very few -- we had a lot of bus stops. We had very few covers. Bus shelter and those shelter all look different. So, we had three shelters within our district when we first looked at it and they all look different. They were all built -- one was built by property owner, one built by the city, all looking different. We started a bus shelter program and the reason we looked into this in the first place, we are very supportive of transit. We think it will be great to have heavy rail up Georgia 400 on it. That's very expensive and we don't have a billion dollars to make that happen. We also don't have a hundred million dollars to bring the transit up that we're looking at now as well. We looked at what can we do to help make the current situation at least a little bit better for the ridership and then of course support through advocacy to get more transit in the area. We looked at the bus shelter program as a way of enhancing either the experience for those currently riding, hopefully enticing others to try it so we looked at bus shelters and we worked with Marta and the City of Alpharetta which is the city the shelters were in. We worked with them to come up with a pleasing everybody shelter that everyone liked and what it looked like aesthetically. Obviously, Marta has a standard they were interested in. The city wanted something that was different but not too different from Marta. We had a lot of meetings with Marta and the city to make that happen. We came up with the shelter you see on the page. Those are two shelters out there. After we came up with the shelter CID put 385,000 down to build the shelters the city built two shelters and we have a bus sheeter reimbursement program. So, if there's a member of the CID that want a setter or has an upgrade to a shelter or wants a shelter, we have a reimbursement program to help them with that. Looking at the feel of the district. You know up' in a special place when you have a few upgrades and that was important to our membership.

One other thing I will say in regard to transit. We have the bus rapid transit. I mentioned it earlier, Marta is looking at extending their rail -- not necessarily their heavy rail but they want to do a bus rapid transit essentially through our district. We're very excited about it. One of the things we're looking at is a station area planning study. When we look at different stations within our district it is important to make sure everyone was at the table. MARTA, looking at stations, looking at development opportunities, possibly TODs, transit-oriented development opportunities, there are a lot of them surrounding these stations and that's fantastic, but the city has zoning approval and property owners who own those properties will play a major factor in what they become or if they become something. It was our idea to bring all of that to the table and make sure MARTA, and the city, because there are two cities included in here, as well as property owners are all very aware of wheat going on, and are all listening, playing by the same playbook essentially and listening to one another, that's very important so we can move forward with something in the long run. That study is 220 thousand study joined by CID and MARTA. We're in the middle of it. I don't have great data. But it will be done at the end of the year. Again, it was important to us to bring all of those people to the table. It is also looking at access to the station, how are people getting to the station. Real quick we did a walk-through analysis of the stations and there were some areas to go 2 miles would take 25 minutes because you couldn't get from point A to point B without going a convoluted way without sidewalk. There wasn't a safe way to get there. We're looking at making those investments early on, so when BRT does come, we're ready for it.

One other thing I'll mention, because they ask me to talk about this specifically, the funding, the CID, we're very excited about all of the funding available that will be available. One of the things we heard from the cities they were excited about all of the funding but worried about meeting the match dollars. As you know there's a match associated with all of the funding understandably. Our CID approved a resolution for related to our three cities, Alpharetta, and Wilson as well as the county we exist in and approved funding as well as matching dollars for the ILIA. The only importance is it be in our district, and it be moving dollars for the ILIA. We already have moneys approved and they will use some of that money for matching dollars.

The other thing that came out as part of funding, the first funding was EV funding and we've not doing Don anything with EV in the past. We realize we need to do something. We are the home of Tesla, our office is right next to Tesla, so we need to do something. We did a need assessment study and really looked where our infrastructure is for EV is right now, where are our stations how many EVs do we have on the streets and what is needed to meet some of those very ambitious Federal and state goals and how can we help with that. So, we did that study and working with some cities now to look at what the next step is for hopefully getting funding to build out some infrastructure where it is most needed because it is coming fast.

I did put on some current initiatives if I have time. I don't have a whole lot of time. I want to mention a few things we're doing. One of the big issues is return to office. We're trying to get people back to the office. We have in our district a lot of head quarter, large office buildings office parks and they are seeing people not coming into the office as much obviously. But that affects our retail, restaurant restaurants all of the commercial property as well. We're doing studies looking at place making, I mentioned a couple other things, we're looking at greenway connections, alpha loop, which is, if you're familiar with the beltline in Atlanta, the alpha loop is Alpharetta's doing that right now, including the Haynes bridge tunnel as well as alpha loop greenway. Just projects for place making. The other thing we're looking being more active and economic development. We've really been on the sidelines of economic development. Building roadways if there's a business coming in that needs a connection, we'll be able to work with them to make that happen, but we've never been really hands on with economic development efforts. Well, that's going to change, and we look how to do that. You notice in our presentation I did not have the North Fulton CID logo, because we're rebranding, and it is changing really soon so I did not include it. You'll hear a lot of news from North Fulton on exciting new things we'll be doing as well.

So, thank you, all, very much. I know that was very quick. I probably left out a lot of things, so, you're welcome to ask questions now or later or reach out to me. The pictures are some of our landscaping efforts which we currently maintain. I think they are the biggest thing for our bucks. They are very attractive. Gateway features and they are probably one of the least expensive things we do. Just something to showcase. Thank you very much. I appreciate you all including me today. I look forward to answering questions and connecting with any of you later on.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you so much, Kristin that was a great presentation. Let see if we have questions for the audience. Operator we would like to open the phone lines to see if there are any questions.

>> PEPPER SANTALUCIA: While waiting for the phone line -- oh, I should let them give instruction. I'll be quiet.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you.

>> PEPPER SANTALUCIA: What's the instruction for dialing in is it star 1 zero.

>> OPERATOR: 1 zero for questions. Thank you.

>> PEPPER SANTALUCIA: While the operator is waiting for those questions, we did get a question related to the bridge project you were talking about. The question is what the impact on congestion during events and rush hour has been.

>> KRISTIN WINZELER: Are you talking on core bridge? That roadway was already existing and open. We did close it down for nine months which is right by the mall. Their only stipulation, it had to be open by Black Friday which we were able to make that help. Very much thank you to DDOT and our partners for that. We did close it down for nine months. When it opened back up again it was an underutilized area. What we've seen the impact is more economic impact and redevelopment now, again because that area is getting so much attention. The City of Alpharetta is looking at redevelopment the north point parkway which is the parkway the mall is on that connects. There's a park going in right across the street. Again, there's been a lot of Domino, kind of Domino effect surrounding the area. So, we -- I will admit we have not done a traffic study on that. I'm sure we're looking to doing traffic analysis in relationship to the bus driver transit stations which there will be a transit station near the parkway. So, there's more information to come but I'm happy to send more information as we get it.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you so much. One other question asking if the CID is similar to the sales tax in Missouri. It is not. The CIDs are property taxes, commercial property taxes. I just wanted to mention that. I don't think I see any other questions, but I'm happy to answer them if you all see any.

Thank you for answering that. I don't see any totally directed to you, but if any come up, I'll be sure to direct them to you after the presentation or after the following presentation.

So, I think we can go into our third presentation, so, our next presenter will be Miss Neoma Jardon. Neoma was hire as Executive Director of the partnership in 2022 after serving for ten years on the Reno City Council. Prior to public service she worked for a law firm for 20 years as native Nevadan, Neoma is passionate of champion for small businesses she used 20 years of management to shape and support municipal policy to elevate quality of live, enhance public safety and pave the way for a better future.

Thank you so much for being with us, Neoma, and please go ahead.

>> NEOMA JARDON: Thank you very much. And I am, as you can hear, someone is outside starting landscaping right as this started, so, I'm going to move into a different space here, maybe which is a little bit quieter.

Good afternoon. Thank you all for allowing me to pro sent to you today from beautiful downtown Reno, Nevada, and I'm going to go into just a little bit of information about our bid and what we do, and one of the significant projects that we have. We've only been in existence, our business improvement district for a short six years. So, we don't have a lot of experience some other presenters do, but we're pretty excited about what we have done.

So, our downtown Reno partnership is the maim of our business improvement district. It is -- we work with business, property owners and residents, city, and County government officials to make the core of our city cleaner, safer, and more vibrant. We deploy downtown Reno partnership Ambassadors. You see them in the blue uniforms. They interact with residents' visitors and homeless to change downtown for better. We employee marketing and economic development experts to attract developers to the area.

We were created in 2018 by the City of Reno. At the request of downtown property owners, there was a number of issues we were experiencing here in our city. There just weren't enough services to go around. There wasn't enough cleaning, maintenance, activation so the property owners came together, 1500 property owners and said we are going to do a self-assessment to help get more services. And our business improvement district is formed through our Nevada statue. A 501c6 non-profit and the goal to make Reno safer, cleaner, and more vibrant. We are funded by property assessments based on property values. To do street maintenance, downtown Ambassador services as well as marketing and economic development.

Our business improvement district boundary we cover a 110-block area and 1500 properties in downtown Reno, we are the only business improvement district in the entire state of Nevada which is unusual to say the least but again we are a little late to the game in the state of Nevada, but we are showing an example of how they can be formed and be really successful. Our business improvement district is broken up into three separate stones, you see the red is standard zone with a base level of assessments and premium as you get closer into the center of our downtown and premium plus which is our core of our city which is Virginia street, the iconic Virginia street where we have our biggest little city arch in the heart of downtown.

Before our business improvement district was created, we had major issues in our downtown area. Our reputation was not particularly great. There was no strong sense of community. Police were inundated with nuisance calls. What you see on the screen was a common occurrence in many areas of downtown.

In just a short amount of time after the business improvement district was created, through our Ambassador services as well as opening of significant homeless campus in the City of Reno, we have seen our homeless unsheltered numbers go down by 58 percent. That is a significant drop in the unsheltered community in our city. That is significantly -- a significant improvement over what was happening previously. We've had a major decline in cleanliness issues and illegal dumping and camping, a 50 percent reduction of nuisance crimes. Two in downtown corridor, which helps the Police Department respond to other levels of crime. Graffiti is no longer an issue. And most, I would say a significant data point is property values in the heart of our city have gone up over 30 percent.

I'm going go into a couple statistics for those who were not familiar with business improvement districts some benefits. Our business improvement district was formed initially and primarily to deal with the health issues community and cleanliness safety issues. On the screen you see some statistics we collect in one year, the popular impact our Ambassador program is everything on the downtown core. The value of trash removed, number of shopping carts recovered. The rides we give to appointments and services and number of businesses checks our Ambassadors do on a daily basis to hope promote business vitality. We have an ongoing pressure washing truck to help with clean issues.

I wanted to talk on one project in particular, that runs through the heart of our city. We had, right through the heart of downtown Reno a railroad track, for a hundred years there was a railroad track that split the heart of our city right down the center. And this project called ReTRAC replaced approximate two miles of above ground railway and lowered it below street level. I bring this one up specifically because I'm going to go into how it evolved into the community, beautiful art community space but how it represents how a number of different agencies and agencies came together to help fund this almost $280 million project and how it has evolved today into what it is. You can see here from the union specific railroad contribution to the bonds to the Federal grants and private contributions, we were able through the ReTRAC project to eliminate ten at-grade street crossings and replace them with bridges and what is called lids.

So, this is up with of those lids. If you look to the left this is what covered one of the lower railroad track areas. This is adjacent to the famous arm in downtown and most famous street. This concrete lid, that rather dormant and bland and dirt filled for a really long time and in 2005, after the railroad tracks were lowered and lids placed on top of them. There were lots of plans to Ren Nate the space or put something on it. They had a lot of restriction, weight, and drainage, you can imagine. So, for many years nothing happened, and the 2008 recession hit and all sorts of plans sort of got stuck but when the downtown Reno partnership was formed, and we identified this as a space that can be revitalized, we kale together to create what is called Locomotion Plaza. Locomotion Plaza, just some quick facts what you're seeing on the right is that same space. Theirs a train running under neath this beautiful art space. It was completed in July of 2021, completed by a grant from the Bloomberg philanthropies, 50 thousand that came from a main street grant, some of our budget and great contributions from architect and landscaping individual and we were able to completely transform this space.

So just a little about the artist and I'm going to talk why it is so important to talk on the artist and the community that was involved in this project is because it really is -- it shows how infrastructure can turn into a gathering space that really evolves a community in such a positive way.

Brad Carney is the artist who was selected to do this art piece on this train trench lid. Out of 25 application eggs was chosen, and it has a story behind it that's pretty incredible about the train trench being lowered, and it signifies the river, the mountains the sage brush and part of the City of Reno flag.

So, it is 18,000 square feet area of concrete. 250 gallons of paint were used to me 260 volunteers, they signed up for slots to come and help paint it which gave them ownership in the project and contributions to seeing otherwise bland and blighted space come to life. They dedicated a hundred hours of time to help paint it and et evolved into something pretty incredible. This is on the train trench lid. And on both sides, there's landscaping. There was DG here previously and through volunteers, there was, many trees planted, perennials were installed and it is really survived well with our harsh winter we just had and dry climate, although this last winter was crazy and very cold and wet, everything is doing well, everything is blooming and it looks beautiful and everybody comes to this space to see the contributions of their work and we in the downtown Reno partnership pay for the monthly maintenance of this landscaping.

Here's just a summary of some of the media that has come about with this infrastructure/art community space, as cuss see, it really caught the attention of a number of people how you can transform a blighted bland area into something vibrant. Special events gathered in this event. We hold numerous special events on this plaza. People are often roller skating on it and everything a great time and again a representation of how multiple agencies through investment and creativity can help revitalize a space. This, today I want to show one of the project Weise have many, many we're doing in the City of Reno and our business improvement district focuses on safety and cleanliness and creating vibrancy in the heart of our city and this is just one of those examples.

And that's my presentation, and I will put in the chat my e-mail as well and I'm here for any questions.

>> Kate Flaherty: Neoma thank you so much, that's excellent presentation. At this point the audience is welcome to ask questions specifically to the presentation or related to any presentations.

Operator can we open the phone lines and see if there are any questions.

>> OPERATOR: Sure, 1 then zero for any questions. 1, zero.

>> Kate Flaherty: Looks like we have a couple questions in the chat. If you can start from the top here. We have a question, so -- sorry, I lost my place there. Okay. I'll start with the last one but are there any additional resources on implementing SADs would be appreciated, and I appreciate the format and content of the webinar. Thank you, Melinda. If any speakers have resources, they want to share on SADs. Feel free to unmute yourself and share those.

And we can also follow up with those resources as well.

If we don't have any resources yet, Abe is asked, for Neoma's presentation, what did you do -- wheat happened to the homeless population. Did they go someplace, were they directed to services of? What caused the -- or I mean -- when you talked about that 50 percent or so decrease in the homeless population, what were the places that that population kind of disbursed to.

>> NEOMA JARDON: You bet. So, many of the individuals went to what is now called our cares campus. It is a very large homeless campus, it is 15 acres, and it is a 600-bed emergency shelter with individual housing pods as well as transitionary housing that's being developed now, it encompasses all of the resources for the entire region. If you take into consideration Reno and sister cities, Sparks and Washoe County. Everybody came together during the pandemic and used some of our COVID relief fund to purchase the land and build this 50,000 square foot emergency shelter to provide beds for individuals. And this entire campus is evolving as we speak. It is literally only open for about two years. That site has allowed individuals to have that pipeline to get out of homelessness. It also allowed, here in the west, we had an appeals Court ruling that said if you do not have a bed identified for every identified homeless person, you can't move them from, let's say under a bridge or off the ridge, oust public space. So, the cares campus also allows for some of that assistance to get people into the shelter.

So, our work from the downtown Reno partnership and help with services to let them know what is available and cares campus that has made the biggest difference.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you, that sounds like an amazing program. Pepper thanks for putting the resources in the chat. Pepper put putt in -- FHWA has resources on special assessment districts. Let me know -- hopefully that should be hopeful.

And you mentioned Neoma how the care campus was funded. Was the special -- was the business improvement district involved in that?

>> NEOMA JARDON: The business improvement district was not directly involved with the initial funding of the project. The initial funding was pulled together through COVID relief fund, but it is ongoing operational funding comes through social service, tax dollars through our County.

What we do, because it is our main shelter for the entire region, we connect with individuals there and transport and advice people of the services there and we help them get to them.

>> Kate Flaherty: Pepper put another resource in the chat. They also have a special resource center.

Going back to some of the questions, there's a question also for Neoma, have you considered installing solar panels rather than the painted plaza?

>> NEOMA JARDON: No. The plaza was painted -- it is kind of a special event space. Reno is known as being special events cast west and that area is where a lot of special events held literally on the top of that lid. There are some restrictions, as I mentioned, in the presentation you can't put a whole lot of weight bearing or anything on it, so it has restrictions to it. That's why kind of a visually appealing painting project that is seen by the residents and visitors on all of the surrounding businesses was the good. There are light things we can do on it, but as far as putting heavier structures, that's restricted by the engineering capabilities.

>> Kate Flaherty: That makes total sense. That makes total sense for retrofit construction like that. And it's a beautiful mural. I think that's really cool the community was involved.

And Pepper just put in the chat you should now see a window or pod to the left that has today's presentation slide as well as resources available for download. Those include FHWA special assessments primer which has Rick's presentation today. Also, special assessment document regarding special assessment districts. You can download these, and it will show the name in the window. When he has directions on how to download those.

Dave Bailey asked a question, have any presenters experienced a SAD solution where the beneficiaries were at RV park or similar who use the newly installed roadway and landowners pass that assessment to the renters? The road I'm considering is seven miles long and the park averages 200 residents per month.

Do any of our speakers want to jump in and take a stab at this question?

>> KRISTIN WINZELER: This is Kristin, I don't know if this answers the question, we don't have any R V parks however we find almost all property owners with office space, they filter their tax dollars and increase rent because of it. The renters do end up paying for it. It is filtered through -- there's a few different levels but it does end up being paid by those that are leasing the space essentially. So, it's similar to what you're talking about, not necessarily an RV park but it's the same thought process.

>> Kate Flaherty: That makes sense.

>> AMANDA OHLENSEHLEN: I would elaborate wetter there's a tax passed on to the end user or much like Kristin just said we have similar things though not for an RV park within our downtown district, a lot of times it is passed along or special assessment or something that kind of helped accomplish, you know, something similar to that.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you. Thank you, Amanda.

>> RICK RYBECK: This is Rick. I have a couple of questions for Neoma. You mentioned within your business improvement district, or downtown partnership, there are areas that get different levels of service. Does that mean the property owners pay different rates of tax, or different rates of assessment on their property value depend on whether they receive the standard premium or premium plus services?

>> NEOMA JARDON: Yeah. We have different formulas that are put together that are based upon a couple of different criteria's and based upon where within the business improvement district you reside. So, residential property owners have a discount. Of course, non-profits have a 50 percent discount, so, there's some exceptions to the assessment formula, but as you move toward the center, there are different formulas based upon where you fall within this district. So, your formula, as you're out to the outer ring of the red outline is less. Your services provided are slightly less. As you move toward the center you get more intense services and formula for paying assessments is different as you get toward the center as well.

To answer your question everything is based upon property value, your assessed property value but each of those districts have a formula within that.

>> RICK RYBECK: I see. That makes sense. Thank you for that answer. Also, did the ReTRAC project create new or more usable real estate for development once the tracks were lowered?

>> KRISTIN WINZELER: If definitely did, a two-mile area in the heart of downtown it bifurcated any sort of project, what this did was allowed for some projects to span on both size of the lid, or the train trench area, and certainly allowed for some more development up to the edge of the lowering of the track area. So, yes, we've seen some significant improvements in development opportunities by that infrastructure project.

>> RICK RYBECK: Great. Thank you so much.

>> KRISTIN WINZELER: Thank you.

>> I know there was a question earlier, I think maybe Ben asked it regarding whether, in Georgia they had a sales tax versus a property tax. I want to clarify within Missouri and our statute, it does allow for different types of either taxes, whether that's a property tax, a sales tax, a special assessment, so, there is some flexibility within our act as far as how that district would, you know, formulate, and what the kind of improvement, capital improvements or services that the district would provide, I shared examples that were static, the maximum reimbursement costs were clearly defined but we have other instances that functioned similarly to North Fulton or downtown Reno where there are ongoing activities and some property taxes may be variable to cover some of the necessary expenses. If it is not enough maybe to cover a bond or something taken out by the city, then that could change over time. So, some of our districts pretty static and very clearly defined as far as reimbursable costs and others may be outlined in the petition to have more flexibility.

>> Kate Flaherty: Thank you so much for jumping in on that. Rick, do you have any other questions?

>> RICK RYBECK: I don't have anything at this time.

>> Kate Flaherty: I wanted to -- I'll watch the chat and see if anyone else puts any questions in, or feel free to phone in as well. I want to go back to Pepper's comments about the resources that can be downloaded in the file share window, those directions are in the chat pod, but I wanted to redirect people there and make sure I explained that more fully, that people can see an icon. You have hovered your mouse over the file name and file share window, you can see an icon with downward pointing arrow. Clicking that should start the download process. Also click three dots in the upper right corner of the file share window, and a menu pops up that you can download all as once. I wanted to put that in as a reminder.

If there aren't any more questions coming in. As we begin to wrap up today's webinar, we would like to remind you of upcoming webinar series. As you can see, we have several more planned before the end of the year, you can use the link on the screen, and I believe you can click on it. And at this point, we invite you to provide feedback using the evaluation tool that you should see at the center of the webinar room. If you would like confirmation from FHWA of the presentation, e-mail valuecapture@DOT.gov. The e-mail is provided in the pod in the upper-level hand corner of the screen. Labeled evaluation instructions and you can use the feedback under today's event if the evaluation tool doesn't work for you. We would like to thank you presenters for participation and would like to thank the web conferencing office and the FHWA every day counts program. That concludes today's webinar, thank you very much for attending.

>> OPERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your call for today. You may now disconnect.