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PITTSFIELD – Town councilors will hold a public hearing Tuesday night to explain their plans to revamp the tax increment financing district that includes the Pittsfield Industrial Park.
The revised plan will allow the TIF to include a new $2 million car dealership where a previous one burned, Town Manager Kathryn Ruth reported. The TIF will allow for redevelopment of the property, retention of 12 former jobs, and the creation of eight new ones at Varney Chevrolet.
A temporary structure houses the dealer’s repair shop. Salesmen and office staff are housed in trailers.
A TIF in essence freezes or shelters the tax valuation of a property for a specific period of years. Half of the increased taxation would go back to the town, and half would be returned to the developer to use for infrastructure improvements, construction or expansion. Because a TIF property is not recognized by the state as part of the town’s valuation, it also would keep the town’s county taxes, state education aid, and state revenue sharing stable.
“Any valuation which is sheltered is an advantage to the town,” Ruth said in a report to the council.
Pittsfield’s TIF would funnel the added revenue into a Capital Project Fund, which could be used for improvements in the industrial park, such as infrastructure improvements, sidewalk repairs and extensions, newer signs, increased road access, and expansion of the land area of the park.
Ruth explained Friday that the manner in which existing TIFs were established in the 1980s and then amended in the 1990s was very complex, with TIFs overlaying each other and having limitations.
“It is to the town’s advantage to update the older TIF district,” she said.
In other business, the council will vote on:
. The purchase of a new server for the town office.
. What to do with a pile of discarded computer and office equipment.
. Signing the annual dog owners warrant.
. Setting a public hearing for Feb. 21 on an $800,000 tax anticipation note.
. Rebidding the town’s 1974 fire pumper-tanker truck.
The council meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, in the council chambers of the municipal building.
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