How we Make the Community Better
To accomplish its mission, the authority works in close partnership with the City of La Junta and City Council.
How We Make the Community Better?
Every redevelopment project undertaken with the help of public investment, has a positive impact on the public. Besides the elimination of blight, which is LJURA’s mission and primary reason for investing public funds in a redevelopment effort, redevelopment brings a variety of benefits to the public at large and especially to the neighborhoods in which a project is undertaken.
Since not all projects are the same, nor do they have the same blighting influences, the measure of success will vary from project area to project area. Redevelopment must always serve a public purpose to warrant the investment of public funds.
The following are some of the public benefits, both tangible and intangible, that result from redevelopment:
The state law authorizing urban renewal authorities was passed to address a very specific problem—slums and blighted areas.
In the law, the state General Assembly called these areas a “serious and growing menace, injurious to the public health, safety, morals and welfare” of residents.
The acquisition of properties and the elimination of their slum or blighted character are considered a public purpose under the state law, justifying the expenditure of public funds. Elimination of blight is the key public benefit of redevelopment.
Redevelopment puts non-producing or under-producing properties back on the tax rolls. Initially, the additional taxes created by the redevelopment area are used to help fill the gap between the total cost of a redevelopment project and the level of private financing it can support. But once the monetary obligations related to a project are fulfilled, the taxing entities have new, permanent sources of revenue that wouldn’t have existed if the project hadn’t been undertaken.
In fact, declining property values and diminishing retail sales, which usually accompany blight, most likely would have resulted in reduced tax collections and increased demands for governmental services without redevelopment.
Redevelopment creates new jobs, both temporary jobs during the construction phase and permanent jobs once a project is complete. These jobs range from entry level service jobs to higher paying management jobs.
TIF revenues must be used for a public purpose, generally infrastructure improvements associated with the redevelopment. These include site acquisition and clearance; construction and/or reconstruction of streets, water and sewer systems; and removal of hazardous materials or conditions. TIF revenues also are used to build schools, parks, and other community facilities.
Redevelopment projects help increase and improve the city’s housing stock. Some LJURA projects have created both market-rate and affordable housing.
Although difficult to measure, there are many intangible benefits of redevelopment that fall loosely into the category of “improved quality of life.” Redevelopment projects can allow residents to live near where they work, spending less time commuting to jobs and shopping. They can help reduce the crime rate, making an area safer. And they can improve the beauty of an area, making it more desirable and helping boost property values.
In older, industrial areas, serious environmental contamination makes redevelopment cost-prohibitive for developers. Often it is easier for a developer to buy clean land than to pay for cleanup of a contaminated site.
With LJURA’s assistance, these brownfield sites can be cleaned up and returned to productive use. Redevelopment also can lead to reduced air pollution if the project includes a pedestrian orientation and is designed around existing transit stations.
Because residents can live, shop and socialize in their immediate neighborhoods, or take public transportation to other parts of the city, dependence on the automobile is reduced. Transit-oriented development/redevelopment also reduces traffic congestion.
Redevelopment provides an alternative to urban sprawl by allowing infill development and adaptive reuse of inner-city sites that have ceased to function in the use for which they were intended.
While many people take for granted the ability to buy groceries, get a haircut, or get clothes dry-cleaned near their home, residents of older, less affluent neighborhoods often don’t have these amenities nearby. One objective of LJURA redevelopment projects has been to revitalize retail in underserved areas of the city.
Preserving La Junta’s historic buildings has been a long-standing goal of the city, and LJURA’s redevelopment efforts have contributed to achieving that goal.
The willingness of visionary developers to reuse older buildings, combined with the financial incentives that make such redevelopment feasible, have helped the city preserve its heritage for future generations to enjoy and appreciate.
The urban renewal law was passed in recognition of the fact that the adverse impacts of distressed areas tend to be contagious. Even though a neighborhood may be prosperous, deteriorated areas in the overall community can still physically and financially have an impact on neighborhoods. Following is a list of negative impacts blighted areas may have on healthy neighboring areas:
- Deteriorating areas cannot pay their own way
People who live in deteriorated and over-crowded conditions are often the victims of crime and unsafe living conditions. Often these deteriorating areas require more public services, such as public safety, than the tax revenue produced in the area can fund. When that happens, funding is diverted from other public services. So deteriorated areas may be a financial drain on the entire community.
- There are no natural barriers to deterioration
If not controlled, deterioration tends to spread, spilling over into adjacent areas and affecting an ever-widening circle of surrounding residents and businesses. As with any malady, a swift recovery is more likely if the causes and symptoms of deterioration are treated early.
- Deterioration results in an economic drain on the community
As offices, industries, services and shops leave or close, jobs and tax revenues are lost. The relocation of one business outside the area encourages other firms to leave, causing a ripple effect on the community. Vacated residential and commercial structures are an economic drain on the neighborhood as property depreciates or stagnates. If the deterioration continues, shopping areas and jobs move farther and farther away, stranding the transit-dependent and causing those with automobiles to travel farther for work and the basic necessities of life. Residents then spend more money and travel farther to find employment, shopping, and recreation outside their neighborhood.
- A deteriorating area results in a negative image that affects development elsewhere in the community
What a community has to offer in terms of labor, land, consumers, facilities, transportation, and environment plays a major role in business location decisions. If a community does not stop deterioration and turn it around, new businesses will not choose the community as the site for new development. A decaying neighborhood is a major deterrent to new investment.
As a project area is revitalized, it begins to generate enough revenue to pay its own way and contribute to other areas of the community.
When a redevelopment project ends, the property taxes from the increase in property values flow to all other local taxing agencies (such as special districts, counties, school districts, drainage and flood control districts, etc.)
Increased sales tax revenues also enable local governments to provide greater public safety and services to all citizens while stopping the spread of deterioration and blight.
The financial structure of redevelopment funding (tax increment) is designed to target and fund only areas that need redevelopment. Consequently, healthy areas of the community likely will not be targeted.
If a redevelopment project can be accomplished without public investment, LJURA does not get involved. But a public/private partnership often is required to accomplish redevelopment of deteriorating urban properties because they are more difficult and expensive than new development on raw land. TIF is used to level the playing field so that developers will find all sites attractive.