The Forney City Council voted to annex 370 acres of land into the city’s boundaries at tonight’s meeting. The land, which is adjacent to the southeastern city limits, is part of the Irish Ridge development and, if all goes as planned, will become part of the major new retail development slated for the Highway 80 & CR-212 area in Forney.

After annexation of the land, the next step in the TIF/TRZ process is a public hearing on the creation of Transportation Reinvestment Zone (TRZ) Number One. The City Council held that hearing as part of their regular meeting this evening, with no members of the public speaking. The TIF/TRZ is vital because the city hopes to fund the ‘Forney bridge’ that will be built at Highway 80 & CR-212 via this process. This bridge is viewed as one of the most important parts of this project because it will create a new corridor in Forney, and the only major north-south in the city that will go over the train tracks, allowing drivers to bypass the numerous train crossings in Forney.

Watch video, below, of the presentation Scott Young of Pate Engineering gave before the public hearing and then the public hearing. The presentation consists of a brief overview of the TIF/TRZ process, followed by some discussion of the TRZ boundaries. I apologize for the shakiness of the video -- this was shot rather spur of the moment using a digital camera, so the quality isn’t the best. Look for vastly improved video coming to 20PM in the next few weeks!

A map presented on October 3rd outlines the area to be included in the tax increment reinvestment zone (see below) -- the October 3rd map shows the TRZ to primarily consist of the Meadow Ridge Farm and Irish Ridge land. However, the map presented on the 18th of November, which also shows the area to be included in the zone, includes much more land, consisting of a vast majority of the land in close proximity to Highway 80 throughout all of Forney, and not just the land near the undeveloped Highway 80/CR-212 area. I am in the process of verifying which map is correct and what changes, if any, have been made to the TIF/TRZ boundaries.

The TIF/TRZ works, in brief, by establishing a baseline amount of property tax revenue in the first year. Then, in every year after that, the increase in property tax revenue over that baseline is used specifically to pay for projects undertaken as part of the TIF/TRZ -- in this case, the additional property tax revenue the city receives from the development that is planned to occur within the TRZ will be used to help pay for the bridge.

Click any of the images, below, for a larger version of some of the documents concerning the TIF/TRZ and the land that was annexed tonight. Stay tuned for additional stories from tonight’s city council meeting over the next few days!

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