Tax Increment Financing (TIF) in an Urban Renewal Area (URA) - are you experienced?
It turns out that my proposed development is in an Urban Renewal Area (URA), and it may be possible to get Tax Increment Financing (TIF).  The basic idea is that the increase in taxable value (property tax, sales tax) goes to the URA and the project gets some of it.

Anyone out there with experience?
[{"id": "ijibfyb", "text": "Yes.", "replies": [{"id": "ijibu0d", "text": "Great.  I'm hoping I can find someone who can tell me how hard it was to get URA project approval, and perhaps a bit of assessment on whether or not it turned out to be worth the effort.  How did your project(s) go?", "replies": [{"id": "ijic7jv", "text": "It all depends on what you can negotiate.  In our case, the city wanted improvements to the sewer in the street but didn't have the money for it so we paid for it and then received TIF payments for 20 years.  It was worth it in our case, but your results may vary.", "replies": [{"id": "ijiczto", "text": "The city will certainly want me to put sidewalk and curb on the adjacent street, and that street is currently on their Infrastructure Funding Plan for the URA.  Perhaps it would be worth it for that.", "replies": [{"id": "ijifzsb", "text": "You never know until you talk to them.  Their level of sophistication will dictate a lot of things, too.", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ijiby9u", "text": "Typically the tax increments go to a fund separate from the municipal coffers, and the fund is used for public improvements in that area rather than invested directly back into individual properties. It might be that the public improvements have already been made, paid by bonds issued by special entity or municipality, and the incremental gains in taxes are used to repay those bonds. Or you'll be required to make an improvement and get repaid over time. In either case, your project doesn't get URA designation, the district is drawn / area is designated and your project happens to be located in that specific area and has to abide by X criteria in order to receive Y benefit, if there is such an arrangement. But you don't get anything just for being there, per se. Maybe you can negotiate a PILOT or other abatement if your redevelopment project is stellar (in the view of the municipality).", "replies": [{"id": "ijidoe1", "text": "The project is definitely in the borders of an established URA.  I've read some of the local URA papers but it is not clear to me what criteria they use to decide which projects inside the URA are eligible.  I hope to get more information from the URA director when he gets back from vacation.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ijk48z3", "text": "Start by estimating the change in property tax to see if it'll even fund the proposed public improvements. In my limited experience, everyone will act like TIF is a big deal, but the $$ is insignificant compared to the total project. Another drop in the bucket, sure, everything helps.\n\nThe base tax value pre-development can really influence things. For example I'm doing a project now that includes a long-vacant obsolete medical office. We've purchased it at the land value, but the assessor's office still has a high assessment on the obsolete medical improvements. That value was in place when the URA was created so we can never see that portion as TIF.\n\nObviously if you're starting with vacant land it is simpler.\n\nIf you can target tenants with high sales tax base you can get more TIF.\n\nEdit- this may depend on the municipality, but I would just call up whomever created the URA and talk about their intent/goals. You have to negotiate the TIF anyway so best to understand upfront their interest in your project/location and what they're willing to do.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]