380 Grant Funding

6/2/2014

I just spoke to Ty, a member of the State Comptroller's Office staff.

All funding for 380 Grants are generated by the municipality. Rowlett will provide for all the funding in a 380 Grant. There is no state or federal funding. That means we make the down payment and provide 15 years of ad valorem tax rebates for the Village of Rowlett apartments. Our contribution to the Village in cash and kind will be about $10 million. The deal was not presented to citizens or council that way. Citizens are owed a huge explanation. Somebody needs a good old fashioned butt chewing for the misleading presentation. Anyone that knowingly contributed to such a deception should be fired. Rowlett isn't a kingdom. Some just think that it is.

The signing of the partnership agreement with the developer should be delayed until the citizens know the real deal.

Debbie Bobbit was right.

1 Comment

Mike Lancaster

6/2/2014 11:48:40 am

Thanks for checking into the 380 grants. You are certainly correct when you say they were glossed over, and after seeing what they really are, I understand why nobody on staff or the council wanted to discuss them.

So, let's just give the developer the $2,000,000 library building, "sell" the land at a discount. (Only to give the proceeds back with tax abatements.) Rent the library space back from the developer to guarantee at least 65% of the retail space is occupied for at least five years, leaving only about 5,000 SF available for retail/commercial development for that long. But that's okay, after all this is only a catalyst, not the full monty of downtown development, right?

Somehow, the 400 or so residents of the Village will make all the difference in the world to downtown business success. And the sales tax from 5,000 SF of retail/commercial, minus 15 years of property tax revenue will justify the $90,000,000 lost to date on the DART rail line.

All that, and all we have to do is put the city at risk for almost $10,000,000 while creating the possibility of not having a home for the library in five years (actually 7 years max) and losing the possibility forever of consolidating our municipal services downtown.

What a deal. This actually reminds me of the federal "Cash for clunkers" program of a few years ago. The city is basically out $10,000,000 to buy approximately 400 new residents. In essence, we are paying each new resident $25,000 to move to Rowlett.

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380 Grant Funding

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