Most accounts of last night’s city budget plan debut made some reference to it being a no tax hike year for Charlotte. Turns out that is not exactly true.
The plan calls for property tax hikes in two of the three municipal service districts that encompass Uptown and in turn fund Charlotte Center City Partners.
The tax rate for one district would almost double and the other would increase by over one-third. According to the budget document, “Additional revenues generated by the tax rate increases in districts 2 and 3 will be used by Center City Partners to create a system and coordinated effort to address the shortcomings of the public and private parking in the Center City, and to create a Center City retail development initiative that will facilitate retail recruitment.”
In other words, public tax money will be raised in order in engage in private-sector real estate investment and subsidy. And, in addition, the city plans to provide another $250,000 to CCCP in order to fund its Center City 2020 Vision Plan.
Overall, CCCP funding via the city will have gone from $1.8m. last year to $2.4m. in FY09, a 27 percent increase in two years. Fascinating. Must be one of our very top-most priorities.
Bonus Observation: That “extra” money from the $60m. 277 land sale is rapidly vanishing. It is down to about $12m. in “unprogrammed” money in the city’s PAYGO fund. The NASCAR Hall gets $20m., the state and Bank of Wachovia another $11m., and now road improvements to Caldwell/Stonewall claim another $17m.
I fully expect the money to disappear in another week or so. Do not forget that the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority is all of $11m. short on its capital improvement plans. Ta-da!
