Revising the Municipal Economic Opportunity Development District Act
The purpose of this bill is to revise the Municipal Economic Opportunity Development District Act generally. The bill enlarges the types of municipal corporations that may use sales tax increment financing to finance certain economic development projects to any Class I, Class II and Class III city and any Class IV town or village. The bill includes mining operations in the definition of remediation and includes remediation of former coal mining sites as a permissible development expenditure for a project. The bill changes the standard by which the maximum amounts of reserves that may be established in the financing of a project are measured. The bill recommends that the development office consider whether the economic development that a project enables is large enough to require that it contain mixed use development consisting of a housing component with at least ten percent of housing units in the district allocated for affordable housing when determining whether there is a pressing need for the project. The bill defines “affordable housing.” The bill allows the development office to reduce the minimum amount of local sales tax revenues that would be deposited into the state’s general revenue fund in certain circumstances. The bill provides that the maximum repayment schedule of all notes, bonds or other instruments issued to fund projects is thirty years.