Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
A tool to assist property owners improve and develop their properties, not a weapon to be used against them.
That’s how city officials are hoping the public will view the Shawano Redevelopment Authority (RDA), which met Thursday to finalize the boundaries of a new redevelopment district and a project plan.
The city will hold a public hearing on the RDA map and project plan on July 14. It will also need the approval of the Shawano Plan Commission and Common Council.
The recently re-established RDA does have the power to invoke eminent domain and take matters to court if necessary, but officials say they are hoping for cooperation from property owners to address areas of blight within the district.
“This is a positive,” Assistant City Administrator Eddie Sheppard said. “We’re not working to attack or to come down on anyone. This is a tool we’re creating to help, because there’s a lot of folks that are going to need this or will be interested in this.”
The proposed RDA district includes some long-vacant and deteriorating properties owned by the Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology and its subsidiaries.
Those properties were not addressed directly at Thursday’s meeting.
Sheppard suggested there could be some property owners unwilling to work with the RDA.
“There are going to be those ones that we are going to have to approach differently, but the idea is, this is a tool we’re creating for the community,” he said.
City officials are hoping to stave off any alarm or concerns that property owners might have after being notified their properties are in a blight elimination district.
“You can understand people are frightful,” Sheppard said. “They don’t want to hear that their business is considered blighted by any stretch of the imagination. We want to get people to understand this is a program for them to utilize.”
RDA chair Amanda Sheppard said the authority’s goal is to clean up areas of blight by making property owners aware of the resources available to them.
“This is one avenue we have, to be able to use some existing sustainable resources that are available already,” she said. “We’re not creating new resources; we’re trying to point folks toward them.”
She also noted that some of the properties in question have also been identified as a concern by members of the community.
“It’s not just folks sitting around a table,” she said. “This is the community saying, ‘we need to do something about this.’”
The plan includes a list of resources for property owners and other available assistance the RDA can provide, largely through the city’s Tax Incremental Finance districts, or direct people to, such as a variety of federal, state and local home improvement and facade grants, low-interest loans and loans from the city’s and county’s revolving loan funds, brownfield grants for properties that could be environmentally contaminated, and additional financial assistance from the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Housing and Urban Development.
According to the RDA project plan, the authority’s primary objectives are to “encourage economic development, promote historic preservation, and enhance quality of life for all residents and visitors.”
The plan would also “encourage property owners to remodel, restore or renovate structures in the Redevelopment District.”
It also goes on to say that if remodeling, restoration or renovation isn’t possible, the authority “may consider acquiring vacant, obsolete, deteriorating or deteriorated buildings that are causing a blighting influence, or contain environmental deficiencies which detract from the functional unity, aesthetic appearance, and economic welfare in the district.”
Under state law, a municipality can designated a blight redevelopment district if at least 50 percent of the property within the proposed district is blighted, which means “a predominance of structures, buildings, or improvements that are dilapidated, deteriorated, obsolete, or conditions that are detrimental to public health and safety.”
Shawano’s proposed RDA district roughly follows the contours of TIF districts already designated along Main Street from the Wolf River bridge on the north to Wescott Avenue on the south, and along Green Bay Street from Main Street on the west to Rusch Road on the west.
It slightly expands those TIF districts, however, to include some surrounding properties.
The district encompasses 391 properties covering about 353 acres. Just over 50 percent of them are considered blighted, according to the redevelopment plan.
The blighted conditions described in the plan include windows in poor condition, peeling paint, exposed wood, rusted metal, boarded-up storefronts and bricked up windows, broken awnings, cracked and crumbling facades, abandoned signage and outdoor dumping of garbage and debris.