11/20/2025
THE HAYDEN URBAN RENEWAL AGENCY EXPANSION IS A DONE DEAL, AND WHY I VOTED FOR IT.
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At yesterday’s Hayden City Council meeting, the one-time expansion of the Hayden Urban Renewal Agency (HURA) was approved 3:1. I voted in support of it. This is my explanation why.
Anyone who drives on Government Way in Hayden knows how bad traffic can be. I remember one citizen who in public testimony quipped about needing a hot rod to enter traffic from his community to the east. It’s bad, and will only get worse with subdivisions in the northeast corner of the city (Hayden Canyon) coming on line. Traffic infrastructure is literally the #1 priority for City Hall, and the costs are staggering, from purchasing right-of-way (ROW) to engineering, to construction. While Hayden’s city government has been very fiscally responsible, and is operating in the black, the reserve funds it has aren’t close to enough to address all traffic mitigation plans up and down Government Way, as well as the rest of the city. This is the sad reality of the most destructive inflation we’ve seen in generations, thanks to Bidenomics.
There are five intersections on Government Way that will be fixed with improvements, assisted by HURA funds: (1) Honeysuckle, (2) Orchard, (3) Miles, (4) Lacey, and (5) Wyoming. Of these (1), (3) and (5) are estimated to cost $8.3 Million. HURA can only assist in these if all four corners of each intersection become part of its district. Keep in mind that your city government is obligated to address road improvements on the west side of the city, such as the Huetter Road and Hayden Avenue which compete for limited capital funds. All told, there is something like $60 Million is planned capital improvements throughout the city, which also includes sewer.
When I came on board as a city councilor in 2024, I was against HURA because it seemed to be a wistfully-managed entity that drained tax revenue away from other needs meant to serve our community, while financing what were arguably pet projects. Part of that behavior could be contributed to the manner of state statutes that existed at the time HURA was created in 2005, which did not establish constraints on how URAs operated and used taxpayer dollars. Things have changed immensely in that regard with new and updated laws out of Boise. Examples are the requirement for a specific plan to which a URA must abide, which is now part of the ordinance. Another is the ability for certain districts (FIRE and EMS) to opt-out of the tax increment. With the passing of this ordinance yesterday which allows the expansion, HURA will now have to comply with ALL updated statutes.
Here are some of the particulars of the ordinance which the city council passed yesterday. (1) HURA still terminates on December 31, 2029. No extension on that. (2) the notion of removing “blight” or “deteriorated area[s]” is relegated only to road conditions in the intersections described above, per agreement and direction of Council in the feasibility study. (3) Under the URA statute, the expansion cannot exceed 10% of the current assessed value for the entire City, which pencils out to be $350,947,286. The base assessed value of the area of expansion is $18,648,428. So about 1/20th of what the statute would allow. (4) The URA statute allows only a one-time expansion that cannot exceed 10% of the physical size of the current project area. The current HURA project area has been 720 acres. The expansion will be 19.2 acres, which is well-under the limit. (5) the anticipated new tax increment revenue from the expansion, over the remaining five years of HURA’s existence, will be roughly $19,000, which is just a 0.3% increase over the revenue that will come from the original HURA area. (6) For all of that, HURA has allocated $1,525,000 towards road improvements in the aforementioned intersections up and down Government Way. To me, this is win-win arrangement. And while it will not cover the total amount required to fix these intersections, $1.5 million is not to be ignored.
I have learned that URAs can be beneficial if they are specific in their goals and limited in scope. HURA did not start out this way, and many of the complaints against it have been justified. With this expansion we have at least nailed down specificity in its plans and now have $1.525 Million dedicated toward needed road improvements that will help the commercial corridor down Government Way. As for the other plan elements – the civic center, and upgrades to McIntyre Park – these will go towards meeting needs and desires expressed in the 2022 Citizens Survey and the City’s parks strategic plan.
