Colorado Legislature closes by passing urban-renewal, disaster, cannabis co-op bills
“Developers and city leaders put on a final push to try to kill House Bill 1375, sponsored by House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, which requires cities to pledge a larger percentage of their sales-tax revenues to proposed urban-renewal districts and mandates that county governments get a seat on the boards that oversee the districts, which typically are funded by tax-increment financing.
While county leaders say they have lost too much property-tax revenue to redevelopment areas and want more say over them, city leaders have argued that the requirement to increase dedicated sales-tax revenues will make it very difficult for them to sell bonds and could halt new urban-renewal areas.
Sen. Michael Johnston, a Denver Democrat and opponent of HB 1375, attempted to add an amendment to the bill Wednesday that would require counties or special districts that file lawsuits against cities over the creation of districts to do so within 30 days of those creation agreements, saying unnecessary lawsuits would add to the already “chilling” effect on urban redevelopment that the bill will have.
But sponsoring Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, managed to shoot down that addition and then rallied a bipartisan group to pass the bill by a 21-14 margin.
Municipal leaders are expected to ask Gov. John Hickenlooper to veto HB 1375.”
Sealover, Ed. Denver Business Journal 7 May 2014.