Normandy City Council Meeting…
The upcoming City Council Meeting on November 3rd at 6:30 will discuss, among other things, the next steps in the Great Streets project. As you know, the nearly completed Great Streets Project was the first in several stages of the process for revitalizing and redeveloping the Normandy area. The goal is to make the Natural Bridge corridor an attractive place for development and investment. By creating a more pedestrian friendly street centered around a metro link station, the hope is to attract investors and development to the neighborhood. Stealing a line from Field of Dreams, Normandy hopes that:
“If you build it, they will come.”
The second part of the process is to use some existing Missouri Laws around redevelopment to encourage the investment. Under what is called Chapter 353 Tax Abatement, local communities can establish Urban Redevelopment Corporations. (URC) St. Louis County and the University of Missouri, St. Louis have established two such Chapter 353 Urban Redevelopment Corporations. According to the Missouri Government website, such Corporations have the power to operate one or more redevelopment projects; however such projects must be pursuant to a development plan which has been authorized by the city after holding a public hearing on the development plan. (353.060, RSMo.) Go to: https://ded.mo.gov/upload/chpt353.pdf for more information about Chapter 353 URC’s.
As I understand it, under this act, developers get a tax abatement for 25 years in return for their investment. The first ten years, their taxes hold steady at the rate at which the previous owner paid the previous year before the purchase. (eg: if bought today, their tax rate would be held at 2014 rates.) Then the next 15 years would be at a 50% of the ‘new’ value of the property.
I encourage you to attend the meeting, there to learn the scope of the URC, to ask any questions, dispel any fears, and to bring any concerns you have to our elected officials.
UPDATE ON THE CONDENSATE LINE FOR THE BOILER. After multiple attempts using a different type of flexible line, the company replacing the condensate line will now have to ‘dig’ at the critical final 45 degree junction that it was unable to get past. They will open the ‘tunnel’ that currently carries both the steam and the return line, access the pipe, and then finish pulling the replacement line the final 30 feet to the boiler, make their connections, reseal the tunnel and then ‘turn the heat on to the church.’ Hopefully by the time you read this, this will have been accomplished. Thank you for your patience.