| The history
of the Louisville Revitalization Commission and "urban renewal"
activities in the Highway 42 corridor |
| In 1971, the City Council created a
9-member Louisville Urban Renewal Authority. The Authority was created
primarily to receive federal Community Development Block
Grant funding. In 1979, the City merged the Louisville Urban Renewal Authority with the Louisville Housing Authority to create the Louisville Urban Renewal and Housing Authority ["LURHA"]. Sometime afterward, the "urban renewal authority" component of LURHA ceased activities. In 2000, the City Council initiated a study of the "Highway 42 corridor." Initially, this corridor was a geographic area south of Griffith Street, east of the railroad tracks, north of South Street, and west of Highway 42. Subsequently, the area was expanded to include the areas south of South Street to Pine Street and north of Griffith Street to South Boulder Road. The study, completed in May 2003 and known as the Highway 42 Revitalization Area Framework Plan, was later incorporated into the Louisville Comprehensive Plan. On page 47 of the Framework Plan, the consultants, Fehr and Peers Matrix Design Group, "recommended that the area be established as an urban renewal district." It said, "Doing that creates the potential for using tax increment financing as one means of financing various needed public improvements." The consultants also recommended that the City--as a prelude to creating work for an urban renewal authority--commission a "blight study" and develop an urban renewal plan. At the time the Framework Plan was completed in May 2003 and at the time the City Council approved the plan as an amendment to the Louisville Comprehensive Plan, the major transportation initiative known as FasTracks (which potentially brings a commuter rail station to downtown Louisville) had not been approved. FasTracks was approved in November 2004. In 2003, the City requested, and obtained, resignations of members of LURHA with respect to their urban-renewal membership on LURHA. Over a 10-month period beginning in December 2003, the City Council "reactivated" the Urban Renewal Authority, reduced its membership to five, and changed its name to the "Louisville Revitalization Commission." The stated purpose of reactivating the Authority was directly linked to the approval of the Highway 42 Revitalization Area Framework Plan as part of the Louisville Comprehensive Plan. (Since then, the LRC has unilaterally expanded its mission well beyond the Framework Plan for the purpose of generating more tax dollars for itself.) The Council approved five citizens, including Mayor Sisk, to serve on the Commission. Subsequently, the Commissioners selected Mayor Sisk to serve as chair of the Commission; he holds that position today. One of the Commission's first actions was to commission a study to identify the presence of "blight" in the Highway 42 corridor. In November 2004, the Commission selected Leland Consulting Group to perform the study, and the City in December 2004 entered into a contract to pay Leland for its blight services. Six months later, after it had concluded in May 2005 that there was blight in the Highway 42 corridor, Leland was awarded the contract to create the urban renewal plan for the Highway 42 corridor. (In April 2004, Leland was selected as a subcontractor to provide fiscal analysis for the Louisville Comprehensive Plan.) Two months before the May 2005 blight study was published and before the Commission had formally reviewed a draft of the blight study, the Commission recommended that Leland expand the geographic scope of the blight study south to Elm Street, west to Main Street and commercial downtown Louisville, north to the Safeway, King Soopers and Christopher Village shopping centers, and to the vacant land known as the "Pow Wow/Rodeo grounds" just east of King Soopers. In June 2006, two months before Leland, the Commission and the City in August 2006 released Leland's Urban Renewal Plan, Leland "updated" the blight study to significantly expand the areas of "blight" in the "Highway 42 corridor." The "updated" study concluded that blight exists at the Safeway shopping center, Christopher Plaza shopping center, the King Soopers shopping center, and the Pow Wow/Rodeo grounds. At the October 3, 2006, City Council meeting, Councilmember Don Brown explained that the urban renewal area had been expanded so that the Commission could “increase the potential for increment” and “expand potential funds.” (DVD of meeting available at City Hall.) On February 20, 2007, the City Council increased to seven the members on the LRC. |
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