The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

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City officials soon will consider approving another Neighborhood Revitalization plan, predicated on an existing program that produced several million dollars’ worth of improvements to Emporia real estate during its 10 years of existence.

Today, commissioners will be asked to set a public hearing date about renewing the program. Boundaries also will be determined for focus areas for the program for the next five years.

Patty Gilligan, human relations director, said that the initial project centered in the downtown area, including all of Commercial Street up to 12th Avenue and some areas around Emporia State University. After a couple of changes, the area also included property between East Street to West Street.

“The old area of town was the original target,” she said.

Gilligan said that 120 property owners had signed up to participate in the first Neighborhood Revitalization program to improve properties totaling slightly more than $6 million in original value. Applications for that program will end on Dec. 31 this year.

“The cost of improvements that the people anticipated making to the properties was $9.5 million,” Gilligan said. “The increase in appraised value is $4,800,000 and the total rebates to people so far have been about $350,000.”

The rebates are money returned to the property owners who have paid their property taxes in full within the payment deadlines.

“People still pay their taxes but then they get them rebated back,” Gilligan said. “... They calculate the difference in the value of the property that was created by the improvements that were made, then they take that dollar amount and give you a percent of your taxes rebated back, after they’re paid in full.”

Owners of single-family dwellings receive a 95-percent rebate of the difference in taxes for the first seven years, then 50 percent for the next three years.

Owners of commercial property receive 80-percent rebates on the tax differences for three years, 65 percent for three years, and 50 percent for the final five years.

Owners of multi-family dwellings receive 95 percent for five years and 50 percent for the next five years.

“And to stay active in the program, all they have to do is pay their taxes on time and in full,” Gilligan said.

Neighborhood Revitalization has no up-front costs for government, nor does it carry federal or state grants, she said. The results, though, are better housing and better-looking properties in the target area and, as the rebates ebb away, more property tax money will be available.

“It really isn’t costing the community much,” she said. “These taxes would never have been collected to begin with if you hadn’t done the improvement.”

Some property owners replying to a survey about the project responded that they would not have made the improvements without the help of Neighborhood Revitalization.

“Well, here’s a way you can do something to your house and if it does make the taxes go up, you get it rebated for a short period of time,” Gilligan said. “The county’s been great working on this, so that’s made it good, too.”

Participation within the program’s designated service area is relatively simple.

Property owners come to Gilligan’s office for approval prior to beginning a project, present improvement plans and pay a $25 application fee to participate.

“It’s very important that they do that so we can set the base value,” she said. “Then when they’ve completed their project, they notify the county appraiser’s office and they’ll do another appraisal.”