Special Bd. of Aldermen — 03/6/2018 Page 6
It is a tool that you can use to help close gaps and projects as talked about and really help make projects
pencil which means that you can help make them actually finance and come to fruition. The ultimate goal is to
try to increase your tax base, try to increase jobs, try to stabilize neighborhoods.
Up on the screen in front of you is a highlighted version of the graph that | was speaking about earlier which
along the vertical axis shows the dollars that’s essentially the value or the tax dollars that you’d be creating.
Along the horizontal access is the years that you’d be talking about for a TIF district and a TIF program and in
the middle is the tax dollars collected. The darker, purplish blue that’s your base valuation so that’s what you’d
be essentially freezing your assessments at and then as development comes in, you’d be bumping up that
increment. That’s that beigish yellow color and that is the increment that you’d be looking to dedicate into the
TIF program and into the TIF fund.
Essentially what are we talking about and this is just a narrative version of the visual that | showed you. If you
have a base valuation of $3 million and you have a project coming in that’s going to be a value of $50 million,
you're talking about a captured value of a $47 million. What does that mean from a tax revenue perspective?
Well remember we had that base value of $3 million. I’m going to use round numbers here and we’re going to
say it’s a $20 tax rate. We know that going to the base tax valuation or the tax revenue will be $60,000 that will
not be captured. Again! want to point out this is a very hypothetical and exaggerated example but the
increment that you’d be creating is $940,000. That would be the money available for the TIF program. |
wanted to give you a very high level exaggerated version of what we’re talking about. Again how did we get
there? We know that you take your value, you divide it by the mill rate, and then you multiply it by your tax rate
and that’s how you arrive at your tax dollars.
Where we are today? So |’m asking for your consideration and approval of a plan that was filed with you which
is a hundred and some pages which outlines basically what is a management document. What I’m looking to
do tonight and this evening is set up the governance structure of how this TIF program would be executed here
in Nashua using the template that has already been tried and true and that’s the one that was done previously
here. All we’re looking to do this evening is to expand on it.
In the document itself and I’m not going to go through it in any detail but | do want to just call out that there are
very specific purposes and objectives that we will be trying to accomplish in the TIF program. That first is to
improve and upgrade public infrastructure and public amenities that encourage and create opportunities for
businesses to locate and expand within the district, enhance employment and residential opportunities for
residents within the district, expand the property tax base, promote the natural asset into design activities that
are respectful for the natural environment, and how it can complement the downtown, provide for better
utilization of recreational resources and opportunities that exist within the riverfront and the walking bike paths
all located within the downtown which can provide better connectivity and a better trail system.
The district boundary itself which | will speak to in a moment is essential 1.8 miles. It goes from the Mine Falls
Park, through the Mill Yard, down ending on Bridge Street and it is approximately 28 % acres. So that is the
high level specifics of the TIF management document. The one thing | want to make sure is clear is we will
need to always come back before the Board of Aldermen to amend this document for any specific projects that
we are looking to undertake. If we were to look to do anything as outlined, we would have to come back before
you and amend the document. This is a government structure that allows us to basically set aside the money
which we need to do per the State Statute and we have to do that before April 1°". Once we develop a project
specific funding, we have private sector dollars that we can leverage or if we have programs that we’re looking
to implement, or maintenance, or services we’re looking to provide, all of that will be outlined in greater detail
and brought before you for consideration to be adopted in the plans before we execute it on spending any
money.
Why are we doing all of this? Because we are trying to actually implement the Nashua downtown riverfront
plan. This document was done over the summer through the leadership of Director Marchant. When | first
came to this city some year and a half ago, during my interview | actually had a couple members of the Board
