By PAULENE POPARAD

The town of Porter Redevelopment Commission is eyeing an expansion of its tax-increment financing or TIF allocation area. The existing TIF areas generated $2,175,000 in dedicated property taxes 2003-06.

Financial consultant Dan Botich of Cender & Company identified five possible TIF areas, all along U.S. 20, with land ripe for future economic development. The commission convened its first 2008 meeting Tuesday.

The proposed TIF expansions are the northwest corner of U.S. 20 and Beam Street at Saylor Basket; land on the right side of Beam Street at U.S. 20 that includes a cabinet shop and former winery; and larger parcels at U.S. 20’s southeast corner at Mineral Springs including the former Spa Restaurant; at the southeast corner of Wagner Road, now residential properties; and along U.S. 20 on the south side east of Waverly Road including the Westchester Animal Clinic, Pinkerton Oil and vacant land last year proposed for a WBEZ radio transmission tower.

Porter currently has six scattered TIF areas with a captured assessment of $35.1 million above the $10.8 million base value when the areas were designated in 1989-90 and amended in 1997.

They include Porter’s downtown, on Porter’s west side south of Beam Street, on the north side of U.S. 20 between Wagner and Waverly roads, and north and south of U.S. 20 at Tremont Road east of State Road 49. All but one of the proposed expansion sites abut existing TIF areas.

Commission president Bill Sexton said the five TIF additions meet the standards the town is looking for under its comprehensive and economic development plans. He asked Botich to provide more information about the new allocation areas for the commission’s Feb. 26 meeting at 6 p.m.

Commission member Dave Babcock, also a Town Council member, asked if Porter could make the whole town a TIF area. Replied Botich, “I believe you’d have overlapping taxing units question that action.”

Botich said TIF programs allow a city or town to designate an area, then capture the property taxes generated by improvements there above a parcel’s base assessment to be used for projects that are in or directly benefit the TIF area. Porter last year used TIF money to upgrade its sanitary sewer system, fund its local share of engineering for two hike/bike trails and pledged funds for a new fire truck.

In 2007 Chesterton, Porter and Burns Harbor were among the taxing units that questioned whether Porter County officials had kept accurate records regarding subdivision of parcels in their respective TIF areas. Botich said he believes the town of Porter’s property key numbers to be correct and current.

Botich advised that 59 of Porter’s 208 TIF parcels have dipped below their original base assessed valuation and he recommended removing 12 parcels with $1.6 million in tax decrement. Resetting their base value to zero rather than a negative number would result in an increase in TIF tax collections by about $30,000 annually, Botich estimated.

Also Tuesday, associate town engineer Warren Theide said they’ve submitted 40 percent complete plans to the Indiana Department of Transportation for review for Porter’s long-planned Orchard Pedestrian Way hike/bike trail along Waverly Road from Woodlawn Avenue to U.S. 20. Sexton said the town may need to request an extension.

Project manager Matt Keiser of the Duneland Group reported on the unbuilt Porter Brickyard Trail’s six-year odyssey. The trail, to end in Porter at Lincoln Street and Wagner Road, will stop short of connecting to the Prairie Duneland Trail in Chesterton by about 300 feet but Keiser said INDOT believes it’s not worth the $750,000 and delaying the project for another year to do so because the multiple railroad tracks to be crossed are gated and signalized.

Keiser said they’re awaiting INDOT approval on the trail’s revised route approved by the commission late last year. When Sexton asked if trail construction will begin this year, after a long pause Keiser said, “I hope so.”

The Redevelopment Commission, not the Town Council, administers TIF money. The commission welcomed new members Babcock and citizen member Trevin Fowler. In addition to Sexton as president, citizen member Al Raffin was tapped for vice-president and councilman Micheal Genger as redevelopment secretary/treasurer.

Posted 1/24/2008