So is redevelopment a good thing?
More than a few Manteca property owners are asking that question after receiving a letter from the City of Manteca during the past week notifying them that their property is being proposed for inclusion as part of the Manteca Redevelopment Agency.
The No. 1 question they are asking: What will it do to my taxes?
It will cost them nothing out of pocket but it will mean most of the future increases in taxes from when homes, business parks, and stores are built in the proposed RDA area or values are adjusted under Proposition 13 rules will stay in Manteca instead of going off to Sacramento.
Critics of redevelopment don’t see it that way. But that is exactly what is happening. It doesn’t undermine current school funding nor does it eliminate future taxes from going to the schools in the future.
What it should - and does do for the most part so far in Manteca - is stimulate development which in turn expands the property tax base that benefits both the city’s general fund and the school district.
Critics are right that the 2 percent tax increment increase allowed under Proposition 13 will not go to the city’s general fund although the dollar amount in place at the start of the RDA - in the case of the areas proposed for inclusion in the RDA that is just under $500,000 a year - will still go to the general fund.
But Manteca has for the most part met with success at significantly increasing sales tax (which does go to the general fund) from RDA investments. The prime examples are Spreckels Park and Stadium Retail Center.
In both cases there is no doubt they could not have succeeded effectively nor as quickly without RDA’s assistance. That was in the form of an $8 million loan for the Spreckels project that was repaid with interest and $10 million in infrastructure improvements along Daniels Street for the Stadium Retail Center.
The RDA took a shuttered sugar plant that posed a serious blight at one of the most high profile locations in the Northern San Joaquin Valley where the Highway 120 Bypass and Highway 99 meet and helped turn it into a $200 million economic juggernaut.
The Stadium Retail Center and adjoining Big League Dreams sports complex was built on wastewater treatment plant land.
RDA has also helped pump money into older areas of Manteca including helping convert the burned-out shell of the El Rey Theatre that stood as a cancerous sore at Manteca’s heart at Yosemite and Main for 20 years into a thriving brewery and restaurant as well as Lincoln Park and downtown in general. The Kelley Brothers’ loan, by the way, was paid in full with interest.
There is definitely a philosophical difference at work.
In the simplest terms it comes down to where do you want your money to go that you pay in property taxes: Do you want it to stay in Manteca or go to Sacramento? It also comes down to whom do you trust will put your money to the best use- your elected leaders in Manteca and city staff or elected leaders in Sacramento and the state bureaucracy?
Manteca typically gets only 10 cents of every dollar in property tax collected on property not included in an RDA project area and 80 cents on the dollar from those that are within the boundaries of an RDA area. That 80 cents includes both RDA tax increment and general fund revenue.
As a personal note, my home is in an existing Manteca RDA area. I pay the same per $100,000 of assessed valuation in property taxes that someone who is not in an RDA district pays.
And instead of most of the money I pay in property taxes going to Sacramento it has been spent in part on helping upgrade my neighborhood park - Lincoln Park - which the city would not have had enough money to do without the RDA.
Is Manteca’s RDA perfect? Nothing is. Has it been effective? For the most part it has been.
Thanks to the RDA I’m a stone’s throw from a teeming business park and retail center that could easily have been a blighted sugar plant for the past 10 years much like the abandoned Holly Sugar plant in Tracy has been. From that aspect, it prevented surrounding property - including my neighborhood - from sliding into blight.
Frankly, I like the idea I can see what my property tax dollars do.
More than a few Manteca property owners are asking that question after receiving a letter from the City of Manteca during the past week notifying them that their property is being proposed for inclusion as part of the Manteca Redevelopment Agency.
The No. 1 question they are asking: What will it do to my taxes?
It will cost them nothing out of pocket but it will mean most of the future increases in taxes from when homes, business parks, and stores are built in the proposed RDA area or values are adjusted under Proposition 13 rules will stay in Manteca instead of going off to Sacramento.
Critics of redevelopment don’t see it that way. But that is exactly what is happening. It doesn’t undermine current school funding nor does it eliminate future taxes from going to the schools in the future.
What it should - and does do for the most part so far in Manteca - is stimulate development which in turn expands the property tax base that benefits both the city’s general fund and the school district.
Critics are right that the 2 percent tax increment increase allowed under Proposition 13 will not go to the city’s general fund although the dollar amount in place at the start of the RDA - in the case of the areas proposed for inclusion in the RDA that is just under $500,000 a year - will still go to the general fund.
But Manteca has for the most part met with success at significantly increasing sales tax (which does go to the general fund) from RDA investments. The prime examples are Spreckels Park and Stadium Retail Center.
In both cases there is no doubt they could not have succeeded effectively nor as quickly without RDA’s assistance. That was in the form of an $8 million loan for the Spreckels project that was repaid with interest and $10 million in infrastructure improvements along Daniels Street for the Stadium Retail Center.
The RDA took a shuttered sugar plant that posed a serious blight at one of the most high profile locations in the Northern San Joaquin Valley where the Highway 120 Bypass and Highway 99 meet and helped turn it into a $200 million economic juggernaut.
The Stadium Retail Center and adjoining Big League Dreams sports complex was built on wastewater treatment plant land.
RDA has also helped pump money into older areas of Manteca including helping convert the burned-out shell of the El Rey Theatre that stood as a cancerous sore at Manteca’s heart at Yosemite and Main for 20 years into a thriving brewery and restaurant as well as Lincoln Park and downtown in general. The Kelley Brothers’ loan, by the way, was paid in full with interest.
There is definitely a philosophical difference at work.
In the simplest terms it comes down to where do you want your money to go that you pay in property taxes: Do you want it to stay in Manteca or go to Sacramento? It also comes down to whom do you trust will put your money to the best use- your elected leaders in Manteca and city staff or elected leaders in Sacramento and the state bureaucracy?
Manteca typically gets only 10 cents of every dollar in property tax collected on property not included in an RDA project area and 80 cents on the dollar from those that are within the boundaries of an RDA area. That 80 cents includes both RDA tax increment and general fund revenue.
As a personal note, my home is in an existing Manteca RDA area. I pay the same per $100,000 of assessed valuation in property taxes that someone who is not in an RDA district pays.
And instead of most of the money I pay in property taxes going to Sacramento it has been spent in part on helping upgrade my neighborhood park - Lincoln Park - which the city would not have had enough money to do without the RDA.
Is Manteca’s RDA perfect? Nothing is. Has it been effective? For the most part it has been.
Thanks to the RDA I’m a stone’s throw from a teeming business park and retail center that could easily have been a blighted sugar plant for the past 10 years much like the abandoned Holly Sugar plant in Tracy has been. From that aspect, it prevented surrounding property - including my neighborhood - from sliding into blight.
Frankly, I like the idea I can see what my property tax dollars do.
