The Bozeman Tax Increment Finance (TIF) Advisory Board met on May 21, 2026, for a work session led by Economic Development Manager David Fine. The primary agenda item was a discussion of the draft North Park Tax Increment Financing (TIFF) Assistance Program Application criteria. No votes or formal actions were taken; the board will consider adopting the criteria at a future meeting.
Hey all uh there's no audio in case they're supposed to. Is that better? Oh. Yep. Zach, you're looming above my shoulder above my head, but I don't can't really see you the direction I'm looking. So make sure you get our attention. Alright, okay. Just making sure I wasn't missing something, but very much appreciated all. Thank you. Um, so we're just we're just looking at the um at these criteria. The the way the the way these are set up is that every urban renewal plan is adopted by ordinance of the City Commission, and it has broad kind of goals about what the district is trying to accomplish, and it's related to the statutory provisions of blight that were found in the blight study. In this district, which is primarily industrial districts, it's about infrastructure deficiency, right? There wasn't a lot of infrastructure, and because of where it sat, the district sits between an interstate highway and a state highway, um, get just getting access into the property was a multi-million dollar lift. Um, and in addition to that, just from an economic development's perspective, um, we struggle to get some of these more industrial kinds of employers and jobs in the city of Bozeman, because they can often build cheaper buildings on cheaper land outside the city. So, this this district in particular is part of our effort to potentially level the playing field. Um, and and make us competitive to have primary employment near primary housing, which, you know, we we hope to be people's first choice for a good place to live in the area. So, um, so each of so really what we try to do is look at look at the goals of the plan and come up with um ways that from a development perspective, we can actually accomplish those goals. So, really, put put some meat on the bone and say when we're trying to accomplish the goal, this is what we're looking for, developer. This is what we're going to evaluate. Um, a little bit about how this gets used. Again, approving a TIFF project is a discretionary choice for the City Commission. Recommending a TIFF project is a discretionary choice for this board. But I think it's important for communicating to the development community, for communicating to the public, that we try to explain what it is we're looking for, and then consider rewarding that when it comes in, right? And then also if we are no longer looking for something that we that we want, um, make incremental changes to our in to our policies to reflect what it is we are looking for. So in this case, we haven't received a TIFF assistance application in this in this district. This is a draft that we worked on a few years ago, but we've just haven't been able to put it put it out there and to a board yet. And so this is an opportunity, I think, to work through the criteria and get it adopted if an application does come in. So that's that's really where we're at with this. And we'll we will be, you know, as as time allows, we'll be coming to some of these other ones during the next biennium work plan for this district. So that's where we're at. Um I wanna I do want to say just for every members of the public, the second piece of this, this criteria for TIFF assistance part, didn't get uploaded into the packet. This is not an action item, right? Um we will add it to the materials online after the meeting. We will take action at a future meeting. So this is really about discussion, us hearing from you, you getting your questions answered, you know, potentially even you suggesting homework to me or just redrafting or those kinds of things. Um, but that's that's what we're doing. So does anyone have any questions before I kick off and just jump into the the criteria for TIFF assistance? Okay. I'm gonna go through this here in case anyone is following along. Um, so the the first goal of the Urban Renewal Plan is to promote economic development with a focus on value adding commerce. So that's um, this is coming out really of our long-term economic development strategy principles. We really are often looking for commercial development that um that is, you know, value adding isn't is in the statute, so we're using that term, but if you're if you're looking at traded sector businesses, that's kind of the term we also use in the in the development plan. The reason we focus on kind of that traded sector, that value added sector is if when you have local dollars spent in a local economy. There is a modest multiplier effect, but really you're not adding, you're not really adding new dollars to the economy. When you operate a business that brings in money from outside of your economy into your economy, that gets multiplied as you spend it at local sector businesses. So, you know, maybe maybe you're a remote worker getting a California salary, uh, and that means you really like going to Natalie's coffee shop, um, possibly, right? Like that's a that's an example of a multiplier effect because then that business is able to um to pay their employees, their employees spend money on the economy and and and that and that does that. So value-adding industries, in this case, we're really focusing because it's M zone property on manufacturing, uh, kind of that trade basic sector manufacturing, other manufacturing and other businesses that are appropriate to the zoning. Um, I'll go through this one and then maybe we'll have a conversation about it. So then the second thing is job creation and training, you know, if there's a specific job creation component to this one.