FARMINGTON – A 12-member advisory board for the new downtown tax increment financing (TIF) district was approved by selectmen at Tuesday night’s meeting.
All 12 people who volunteered to serve on the committee were approved. They are: Selectman Josh Bell, residents and/or business owners: Buzz Davis, Gary Edwards, Cindi Ferguson, Ron Gelinas, Alison Hagerstrom, Drew Hufnagel, Mary Lello, Kevin Madore, Mike Mansir, John Moore and Tom Saviello.
TIFs capture a percentage of new valuation within a defined district. The Farmington Downtown TIF consists of most of the downtown area, as well as some additional property, such as the new Brookside Village Affordable Senior Housing development north of town on Fairbanks Road.
The captured valuation is not added into the state-calculated town valuation, so it won’t be considered in the school funding formula. Funds raised through the taxation of captured valuation are not added to the general fund, but instead set aside for special projects within the district, as defined by the TIF.
The value which could be considered part of the downtown TIF district increased by $22.3 million as of April 1, 2014, due to projects like Brookside, which was 65 to 70 percent complete at that time.
In late August selectmen approved a 9.91 percent increase for a mil rate of $17.31 per $1,000 of property value. In doing so, they settled on a 28 percent capture rate of $22 million in total, with the new value adding $108,300 into the TIF account, the town’s assessor Mark Caldwell said at the time.
The newly appointed advisory committee will be tasked with researching and making recommendations for projects funded by TIF that they’d like to see downtown. Previous projects mentioned were new sidewalks, public restrooms and a new pedestrian bridge over the Sandy River.
Selectmen have the final say on TIF funding expenditures.
There is already a bridge across the Sandy and as luck would have it there is a nice wide sidewalk on it as well.
Captain, have you tried to walk the Farmington side of it? It’s a nightmare until you get beyond Cumberland Farms. I don’t have a solution, but there is also no safe way to get across 2, 4, and 27, either.
Walking to\ from Gifford’s on Front St. is another pedestrian “nightmare.”
A great location for a pedestrian/bicycle bridge is that earlier proposed; the old RR bed!
It’s obvious that a new pedestrian-ATV-snowmobile bridge where the old RR bridge was would be a big benefit to businesses in Farmington.
Somehow we lost the RR bed from Bridge Street to the river as there are private signs on it. I don’t know how that could have happened.
Private property…lots of legal angles, and abuse from people using it…the owners are fed up, and have closed it off.
The opposite side of the river is going the same way. So even if we ever got a bridge, and the present owners on the East side allowed use of the Right-of-way, there’s nothing left on Front Street for parking – its all now privately owned, and restricted – private owners’ right.
The maintenance of a bridge is a real concern. Spend TIF dollars to build…okay. But who repairs it? We, as a town, can’t keep up with what we have.
But my point is that most of the bed is in the public domain. How is it that this section isn’t. I don’t question what they’re doing or why, but how we lost the land.