Lakeport TIF Nearly Done

LACONIA — City Manager Eileen Cabanel told the City Council this week that the delineation of a tax increment financing district, or TIF, in Lakeport is nearing completion. She explained that the project began in 2007, but stalled when much of the preliminary work was rendered obsolete by the revaluation of properties. throughout the city.

Tax increment financing allows municipalities to delineate TIF districts, then apply a portion of the future tax revenues that accrue from the increase in assessed value generated by new construction, expansion or renovation of property in the district to service borrowings used to fund public improvements within it. Typically, half of the incremental revenues will be reinvested in the TIF district and half deposited in the general fund. The improvements are made in conjunction with private developers, who undertake to complete particular projects while municipalities commit to enhancing infrastructure — roadways, drainage, sidewalks, utilities and so on — within the TIF district.

After establishing a TIF district downtown in 2004, the city almost at once began contemplating similar districts in Lakeport and at The Weirs. However, the effort did not gather momentum until after the "smart growth" team from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which visited the city in 2006, offered several promising recommendations for redeveloping properties on the lakeside, Elm Street and the Square in Lakeport.

Cabanel explained that the boundaries of the TIF district should capture the properties to be redeveloped and rise in value as well as areas in need of infrastructure improvement.

When the district was first drawn it covered 51-acres with an aggregate assessed property value of nearly $41-million, of which $12.3-million is almost equally divided between Lake Village Apartments and the Opechee Inn and Spa and accompanying conference center. Among properties ripe for redevelopment, perhaps the most promising was a 4.81-acre lot at 42 Franklin Street fronting on Lake Opechee. The site includes three buildings, two described as light industrial and the third a warehouse. The parcel has an assessed value of almost $1.5-million.