East Bay Township trustees have approved a resolution of intent to form a corridor improvement authority (CIA) – a TIF district that operates similarly to a DDA and would cover the township’s Beach District along US-31, helping fund improvements like pedestrian crossings, sidewalks, streetscaping, and a public pier. A July 30 open house and August 11 public hearing will allow residents to learn more and weigh in on the plan.

After completing a new vision for the East Bay Beach District last year, township officials are pursuing an opportunity to fund public improvements prioritized in that plan through a CIA. A CIA is a tool in Michigan similar to a downtown development authority (DDA) that uses tax increment financing (TIF) to pay for public infrastructure projects. Michigan has several requirements for establishing a CIA, including the corridor having been in existence for 30 years, having at least 51 percent of first-floor space classified as commercial, and being served by municipal water or sewer, among other criteria. The East Bay Beach District CIA would roughly follow township boundary lines on US-31 from Airport Access Road to Holiday Road.

A CIA has a defined time period and a TIF plan describing the projects that would be funded by tax capture. A TIF isn’t a new tax, nor does it raise property taxes; it instead sets a base year for taxable values on properties within the CIA and captures the difference as those values increase over time to fund public improvements. East Bay Township is still developing its draft TIF plan, but over 700 community members who participated in the Beach District visioning process identified several key priorities that will likely be included.

Chief among those is improved pedestrian safety in the corridor – an ongoing issue that was highlighted by the death of a visitor crossing US-31 on foot last weekend and debate over the planned removal of the pedestrian bridge by the Traverse City State Park. Installing safe pedestrian crossings every quarter mile along the US-31 corridor is one possible infrastructure investment to be covered by the CIA.

Other resident priorities include completing the sidewalk network along both sides of US-31 and up Three Mile and Four Mile roads. Maintaining those sidewalks year-round – including winter plowing – is also on the potential project list. Placemaking enhancements like planters, seating, landscaping, and lighting along the corridor have also been named as possible improvements.

Finally, the development of a pedestrian pier to enhance access to the water was cited as a priority by residents during the Beach District visioning process. The Grand Traverse County Road Commission has expressed a willingness to transfer a parcel it owns on the north end of Four Mile Road to East Bay Township for potential use for that project. “It’s an initial conceptual idea...but it could provide an access point for people to get out on the water who don’t have a boat or other means to get out onto East Bay,” Township Director of Planning & Zoning Claire Karner previously told The Ticker.

Establishing a CIA requires a substantial public input process. Following trustees’ vote earlier this month to adopt a resolution of intent to establish such a district, the next steps involve outreach to the public, local stakeholders, and regional taxing jurisdictions like Northwestern Michigan College, Grand Traverse County, and Bay Area Transportation Authority (BATA). Township officials will host a public open house on Wednesday, July 30 from 4pm to 6pm at the township hall to present CIA plans, with the open house continuing that same day from 6pm to 8pm at Hopscotch Brick Oven & Taproom. East Bay Township will also be sending mailers to all properties and property owners within the proposed district with more details.

A public hearing will be held August 11 at 6:30pm at the township board of trustees meeting. Trustees could vote as soon as September to move forward with establishing the CIA, with a process to follow this fall to set the district’s official boundaries and finalize the TIF plan. Ahead of that process, township staff have begun meeting with the regional taxing jurisdictions and will give presentations to their boards in the coming weeks.

“A lot of our discussion has been about what kind of guardrails we would put in place for this (TIF plan) that would ensure it doesn’t turn into something that’s negatively impacting those partners,” Karner says. Those could include limiting the TIF plan to a certain acceptable duration – such as under 30 years – and/or starting out the plan with 100 percent capture and gradually reducing that percentage over time to return more revenues to the taxing jurisdictions, Karner says.

More information about the East Bay Beach District and the CIA process is available on the township’s website.