Minutes of Council Workshop on DIF dated May 1, 2018
WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE AGAWAM CITY COUNCIL
The following are the minutes from the:
Agawam City Council Workshop Meeting
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 7:00 P.M.
Agawam Public Library
Community
Room
750 Cooper Street
Agawam, MA 01001
The meeting was attended by eight of the City Councilors with Councilors Letellier and Rossi absent. Also in attendance were Mayor Sapelli,
Planning Director Marc Strange, Jeff Daley, Will Clark and Ron Weiners.
The meeting was called to order at 7:00 P.M.
1. TR-2018-32 - A Resolution adopting the Walnut Street Extension
District Improvement Financing District (Mayor Sapelli)
Mayor Sapelli presented TR-2018-32 which would hopefully help development in the Walnut Street area. Jeff Daley of C.J.C. Development
Advisors of Westfield went into a more detailed explanation and answered questions. This allows for the creation of a district to identify properties that would benefit from the DIF
by commitment in working the area better and looking for new future development. Right now there is a lack of current tax base and any new growth goes towards paying for infrastructure
improvement. Tax dollars earmarked to pay debt service on infrastructure bonding costs. East Longmeadow/Longmeadow did the first DIF development last year for $2½ million public infrastructure
improvements. At Monday’s meeting, they will just be creating the district and setting a baseline value. That commits us to twenty years and any increases in property values and increases
in taxes go into the DIF Fund not the General Fund. The baseline value is $31,000,000. Council President Johnson asked for a breakdown of tax revenue for today as well as the last five
years so that we can see the historic trend in values. Marc Strange will have this for Monday’s meeting (May 7th). An opportunity zone was created on the federal level, tax deferment
programs were created and this is also in the DIF District. If this passes on Monday night, new growth for FY19 would go into the DIF.
The workshop was adjourned at 7:45pm
Respectfully
submitted,
Cecilia P. Calabrese
City Council Vice President
cc: Full Council, Mayor, Solicitor