Tax Increment Finance Advisory Board Work Session on North Park TIFF Assistance Program - May 21, 2026
Tax Increment Finance Advisory Board Work Session – May 21, 2026
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.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Mark Campanelli, identified as a Bogert Park resident, spoke during public comment on the North Park district. He proposed formation of the East Gelaton Watershed Trust, a nonprofit focused on mitigating conflicts between neighborhoods and water courses. He highlighted the presence of Mandeville Creek through the district, noted recent tree planting by the Gallatin Watershed Council and Trout Unlimited, and urged the board to leverage the creek and natural environment as an amenity for economic development and worker attraction. He emphasized that placemaking, connectivity, and environmental health should be central to development decisions, given the use of tax increment financing.
Discussion Items
- Work Session: North Park Tax Increment Financing Assistance Program Application – David Fine presented draft criteria for evaluating TIFF assistance requests in the North Park Urban Renewal District. The district, primarily industrial with significant infrastructure deficiencies (lack of access, long utility runs), has seen limited development. The draft criteria are organized under five goals from the Urban Renewal Plan, each with point weights: promote economic development with a focus on value-adding commerce (10 points); invest in efficient delivery of public infrastructure (20 points); encourage public-private partnerships (5 points); support planned urban density and design (10 points); and project relationship to the plan and investment ratio (10 points). The weighting reflects the priority on infrastructure investment, given the district’s history of stagnation. Board members discussed:
- The relative weighting of goals, particularly whether value-adding industries (e.g., manufacturing vs. service trades like auto repair) should be scored higher to capture local economic activity and prevent loss of such businesses to lower-cost areas like Belgrade.
- The investment ratio (8:1 for commercial, 5:1 for other) as a guideline for comparing public subsidy to private investment, measured via developer pro formas.
- The role of public-private partnerships, with a board member suggesting an indoor sports facility as an example of community benefit.
- The difference between this district’s criteria and those of other TIF districts (e.g., Midtown and Northeast are more human-scale and placemaking-focused).
- Logistics: Infrastructure developer likely to be the applicant, with horizontal infrastructure (e.g., roads, utilities) as the primary TIFF-eligible expense.
- Commission Update – David Fine reported that the City Commission adopted the work plans and budgets recommended by the TIF Board, including reallocating $100,000 from the parking garage design fund to a Midtown action plan update. This update will focus on public realm planning, trails, and parkland, with board engagement anticipated.
Key Outcomes
- No votes, approvals, or formal decisions were made during this work session. The board directed staff to refine the North Park TIFF assistance criteria and return with an action item for adoption at a future meeting. Staff also indicated they would bring forward additional district criteria in subsequent meetings.
Meeting Transcript
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.
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