The City of Columbia, Richland School District 1 and Richland County face one of those rare coming-together moments in about two weeks.

Or will it be a go-our-separate-ways moment?

Decision time is arriving soon on two proposed Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts. The deadline is Nov. 18.

A TIF would allow the city to capture new tax revenues from a district carved out for new development and use the funds during the next 25 years for improvements in that district.

While most planners would describe the Innovista TIF (above) as the most likely to succeed, the North Columbia area is seen as the neediest.

Two TIFs are under consideration: one in the Innovista area near USC and one in North Columbia.

The plans are modeled on the successful use of TIF financing to spur development in the Vista in the 1990s.

Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Devine, a proponent of both TIFs, expects the City Council to support the proposals, but says it’s too early to say for sure what the final vote will be.

“We are in a holding pattern,” she says.

Mayor Bob Coble has also expressed his support for both TIFs.

Richland 1 School Board is still pondering the TIF proposals, according to Board Chairman Vince Ford, who declined to predict an outcome.

“The district is in a review and assessment phase,” Ford says.

The board will await the City of Columbia’s vote before it makes its own decision.

Ford would not venture an opinion on the outcome, but notes that the board has favored a
TIF in the past. That was a different school board.

Board member Rob Tyson is also undecided.

He says a key issue is making sure that a commercial development district will not displace students from the school district, which has been in a state of declining numbers during the past few years.

Speaking to The State, Richland 1 board member Susie Dibble expressed reservations.

“I do have a great deal of worry about this,” she said. “We still have lights to put on and teachers to pay.”

Richland 1’s cooperation is a key, since it would provide more than 50 percent of the tax revenues gained from the TIF.

Another big question mark is Richland County Council.

Richland County Councilman Norman Jackson says he can support the Innovista Plan because it is well documented and has the strong support of USC. But he doesn’t like the North Columbia plan, formally known as the Columbia Renaissance district.

The problem is putting money into an area that is unlikely to draw new development. He says more work needs to be done.

“You can’t put new businesses in that district unless you have a change in demographics.”

The council has not deliberated on the project and only received a packet of information at its Oct. 27 meeting.

Councilman Greg Pearce questions whether the council has enough time to digest all of the ramifications of the project by the Nov. 18 deadline.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” he says of the TIF proposal.

Some discussions on the project were to take place at an October meeting that had to be cancelled because of the lack of a quorum.

Pearce says the stack of documents he just recently received is four to five inches thick.

The TIF question is further complicated by the fact that Columbia City Council has divided the Innovista and North Columbia proposals into two separate TIFs.

“There are two TIFs,” Pearce says. “Can we approve one without the other? I don’t know.”
 Pearce expects to get more data during the deliberations, but questions whether such a project should have to be decided so quickly.

“We will have two meeting to go through something that will impact us for the next 25 years,” he says.

Most of the public deliberations have centered on the Innovista project near the USC campus. The university has provided numbers and details on that $154 million project, which would encompass a district between Gervais and Heyward streets in the Olympia area.

The plan would allow the city to issue bonds up to $150 million for such needs as updating road, sewer and stormwater infrastructure as well as implementing the many individual components of USC’s original Innovista Master Plan, prepared by Sasaki Associates in 2006.

The North Columbia TIF includes the Bull Street property owned by the Department of Mental Health and would also focus on development and improvements along the corridors of North Main Street, Farrow, Fairfield and Monticello roads. The plans call for $238 million in public redevelopment investment that will come from federal, state, local and private sources. The TIF would provide $40 million of the total.

While most planners would describe the Innovista TIF as the most likely to succeed, the North Columbia area is seen as the neediest. There are revitalization efforts under way in some parts of North Columbia, but many of the business districts are marked by boarded-up storefronts and vacant shopping strips.

Theoretically, the TIFs could move forward without school board or county support, but the revenue generated would be much lower under that scenario.

Is a TIF in the future for the Innovista and North Columbia? It’s all now on the table for the 25 elected officials serving the city, county and school board. 

Let us know what you think: Email editor@free-times.com.