(Re)Considering a New Urban Renewal Plan
Last summer, Talent City Council considered an Urban Renewal Plan to help recover from the Almeda Fire. During the consideration process, the City received a lot of important feedback on that plan. Specifically, the community expressed concern about the financial impact to the other taxing districts, the broadness of scope, and allowing stronger community input on determining if the plan should move forward. Over the past six months, the City has been redrafting the urban renewal plan to address those shared concerns and has gone through another round of feedback and review. Now, the final edits are in!
What changed in this version of the plan?
The core goals of this Plan are still the same as the previous versions: recover affordable housing, revitalize our commercial areas, upgrade city infrastructure to better support the higher-density housing, and increase our resiliency to and decrease our risk of natural disaster.
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Delaying the start date an additional two years, so that City, County, Fire District and other impacted districts receive funding levels closer to or above what they were prior to the fire.
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A smaller maximum indebtedness ($16.4 million vs $62.5 million), which decreases the financial impact on other taxing districts.
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A scope that focuses on Almeda Fire recovery and disaster preparedness, and names 16 specific projects that urban renewal will undertake.
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A boundary that leaves out neighborhoods that are effectively rebuilding on their own.
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Stronger language to define who this plan is intended to help and how.
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Referral to the May 2023 ballot.
How can I learn more?
You can learn more about this specific Plan by viewing past presentations by the City, or reading the Plan documents themselves.
Presentation Slides to Phoenix Talent School Board
Proposed Urban Renewal Plan (draft as of 3/10/2023)
Accompanying Report (draft as of 3/10/2023)
A paper copy of both the above Proposed Urban Renewal Plan and Accompanying Report are available for public inspection at City Hall during regular business hours.
What is next?
Talent's City Council has asked the Talent Community to take an advisory vote to let Council know if they should or should not move forward with using urban renewal to finance the projects listed in the Plan. That advisory vote is appearing as a ballot measure on the May 16, 2023, special elections.
You can check out this Frequently Asked Questions Flier that the City of Talent prepared to help inform the community members about the ballot measure and its potential impacts.
Update as of 5/22/2023:
Talent voters advised the City of Talent that they did not want the City to move forward with the proposed urban renewal plan.
Rather than move forward with adopting the plan, the City will prioritize which specific projects are the most important to accomplish now, and then will work on individual funding plans for those projects - i.e. the city will start accomplishing the projects on a case-by-case basis.