Who’s paying what for the Eastside Streetcar

This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s Next Up at City Council review, in which one of the Agenda items is assessing eastside property owners $15,000,000 towards paying for the Eastside Streetcar. Chris Smith, chair of the Streetcar Citizens Advisory Committee, commented with the following breakdown:

Eastside Streetcar Extension: Total cost approximately $152,000,000
Source: Portland City Council Ordinance

$75 million – Federal grant (applied for)
$27 million – Portland Development Commission, tax increment funds from three Urban Renewal Areas
$20 million – State lottery funds
$15 million – Local Improvement District (property owners)
$6 million – Transportation Systems Development Charges (City funds)
$4 million – Regional (Metro)

Updated 8/15/07 with more precise numbers from Mercury Blogtown:

$75 million – Federal
$27.18 million PDC from three Urban Renewal Districts ($17 million from the River District, $4 million from the Convention Center district, and $6.184 million from the Central Eastside District)
$20 million – State
$15 million – Local Improvement District Updated 8/15: includes $2.48 million from Metro for the Convention Center’s share, and $1 million from OMSI; close to $4 million in public money overall in the LID
$6 million – City transportation system development charges
$3.7 million – Metro transportation fund

I’m told by email that the Portland Development Commission (PDC) discussed this Streetcar funding at their meeting last week. They talked about finding about $30 million for the Eastside Streetcar section, to come from three Urban Renewal Areas’ (URAs, or Districts) budgets – the Central Eastside, Convention Center, and River Districts. They also mused about the impacts to the rest of the URA budgets; on what would not be built as a result; and how certain is the Streetcar budget and what happens if there are additional charges.

PDC Commissioners expressed concern about the lack of public discussion so far on these expenditures. A hasty process is somewhat understandable in that the City has to assure the federal government by the second week in September that half the project funds will be found locally, but not exactly which local pots will be used. Proponents of the streetcar don’t want the federal $75,000,000 to get away, as apparently this would be the first federally subsidized Streetcar program. The feds have mostly supported light rail projects in the past. But still, finding $75 million in local/state funds is a significant commitment that deserves more public review before accepting the federal money (assuming we get it).

PDC will not vote on the allocation of Urban Renewal funds for the Eastside Streetcar until the next budget process – in which thanks to Measure 26-92 passing, the City Council will form the PDC Budget Committee. The Streetcar allocation is already stretching the Central Eastside urban renewal budget. And the largest amount of URA dollars requested would come from the River District – dependent on extending that district (both its funding and the area it covers). The River District URA doesn’t expire until 2020, but the maximum indebtedness allowed under the current plan will be reached by 2010. The $20,000,000 or so needed for the Eastside Streetcar from the River District would probably come from an extended credit limit for the district – something the Council already agreed to do in the Central Eastside district, in part to finance the Streetcar. This PDC/City Council budget work group transmittal memorandum from February 2007 outlines that committee’s recommendations for extending westside URAs to allow for more funding for more projects within them. Since paying off debts means it will be another ten to twenty years after the URA “expires” before the taxes from new development start going into the General Fund, citizens at large should be allowed to comment on whether the eventual payback will be worth the wait.

In the testimony at PDC last week, speakers raised other possible needs/uses for an increased credit limit in the River District — the Post Office move and site preparation for development, Union Station improvement and development of blocks around it (see OregonLive, and comments here); Old town/Chinatown needs if additional acreage is added to the River District; housing and more. It’s not clear to me how competing priorities in the River District will be weighed, as it seems like the decision to move ahead on the Eastside Streetcar no matter how much it costs has already been made. And therefore, that increasing the maximum indebtedness and expanding the area of the River District URA is already a done deal.

It sounds to me that a more comprehensive review of Eastside Streetcar funding is needed, beyond just the assessment of eastside property owners on this week’s Council agenda. Just in the information given to me via e-mail and reported in the paragraphs above, there are a lot of variables, many competing funding needs — as well as the core, underlying question of whether the westside Urban Renewal Areas should be extended in timelines and area at all. It seems to be a good idea to see if we can get the federal grant by promising the local match, but if we get it, I’d like to see more public discussion on the pros and cons of all elements of the financing before we accept it.

Here we have a project slated to cost $152 million, already. Is there a point at which building it would be too expensive, and if so, how much would that be? How will the process be managed so we would all know if reaching that point seems likely or inevitable?