South Bend looks for growth beyond and within its borders
By the end of the year, the city wants to annex three areas and redraw some tax increment financing district boundaries, bringing new money to the city as a whole, and specifically to parts of the city that haven't yet enjoyed the revitalization that's occurred downtown, said
By state law, the annexations must be done by the end of the year or wait until 2021 because they cannot occur less than a year before a decennial
The first proposed annexation is an undeveloped piece of land northeast of the
The second proposal involves three parcels that
The third annexation is along the eastern side of
Mueller said there were no plans on when to petition the council for the annexations, or even which one will come first, but all three would be "voluntary" on the part of property owners.
"The Overlook, we would see that as an urban, city-developed parcel that makes sense to be within the city limits and it's right there next to existing city limits," Mueller said.
Annexing The Overlook would generate up to
Mueller said the university is "not opposed. They're just trying to sort through what makes sense."
He said the university is interested in potentially developing land between
"You can imagine it will be some combination of game day residences or mostly residential of some sort," Mueller said.
But Notre Dame spokesman
When told of Brown's response, Mueller said that "as we continue our discussions with the university, we'll ultimately need their support for the annexation process to move forward on their parcels."
TIF changes
The other plank of the city's coming economic development strategy, reconfiguring TIFs, could prove more contentious as neighborhoods vie for new access to those property tax dollars. TIF districts, authorized by a 1975 state law, allow a city's redevelopment commission to capture new property tax revenue in a designated area and spend it on things aimed at driving more growth, such as city utilities.
Mueller said the city has planned the TIF changes for about a year, but the administration felt a new sense of urgency during the recent controversy over whether an anti-abortion rights group should be allowed to locate next to a proposed abortion clinic on
During that debate, council members criticized the administration for not having done more to facilitate redevelopment of neighborhoods outside the city's core, as called for in several plans. In recent years, the city has involved the public in crafting plans to redevelop parts of the city, such as the West Side Main Streets plan, without putting such plans into action.
Mueller acknowledged those frustrations, but said downtown redevelopment, sparked by the administration's
"You have to start with the downtown core," he said. "Now the downtown core is starting to pick up. We're not there. It still has a lot of infill to be done. But there's momentum downtown and now we're able to start moving out from downtown into the neighborhoods."
Some of the TIF district changes being considered include: adding 119 acres to the River East TIF, to include
The administration wants to receive council members' feedback on the TIF boundary changes over the next few weeks, Mueller said. The process starts with a declaratory resolution by the city's redevelopment commission, then to Area Plan, then to the council, then back to the redevelopment commission, a "few-months" process outlined by state law.
"I think it will be received positively because this really is the bones to implement our neighborhood plans," he said. "We hear from residents, we hear from council members and others, we want a focus on the neighborhoods. This is a part of the implementation strategy to make good on that."
Council member
"This is an opportunity for us to really live our values," Williams-Preston said.
She said she also wants the River West-Central TIF to take in a residential area, bounded by
"Residents have been asking for infrastructure improvements like sidewalks and curbs," she said. "We could do that and more."
Mueller said a top priority will be honoring a commitment the city made in 2014 to add the Museums campus,
At a meeting last week, Bognar told Mueller and council members that the lack of infrastructure investment, such as street lighting, sidewalks and curbs, in the
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