City accepts petition for PID

City accepts petition for PID

NICOLE LESSIN [email protected]

Taylor may soon be getting a new privately funded road though an industrial park near the airport — plus, a new natural area as well.

At the regular meeting of the Taylor City Council Oct. 12, city leaders unanimously approved accepting a petition to create the Quannah Partners/Taylor Industrial Park Public Improvement district on 70 acres northwest of U.S. 79 and County Road 401 and moving forward with a public hearing for the PID Nov. 9.

“This property has very limited access,” said Taylor Assistant City Manager Tom Yantis. “Currently, it just has a small drive off of 79 ... The proposal is to extend County Road 401 north of 79 along the boundary of this property and the neighboring property.”

The proposed industrial park, which is right near the Samsung Austin Semiconductor Facility, will eventually house 357,250-square-feet of industrial space in three buildings, officials said.

Yantis said a large chunk of the property is located in the floodplain with only a small portion developable. So, to finance and construct the roadway, it will run all the way to CR 366 at the Chandler Road intersection and the applicant will need to create a PID, a special entity that uses assessments to finance improvements.

Rick Rosenberg, the managing principal at Development Planning and Financing Group, said the PID will generate approximately $4 million to build the roadway plus other expenses and bonds may be issued in a few years.

“What we are using the PID to do is to bring private dollars to pay for public infrastructure,” Rosenberg said. “All the costs of the PID are the responsibility of the developer of the project. We are putting no burden on the city and no residents of the city of Taylor have any burden because of this financing mechanism. Unless you own property within the boundaries of this project, this 70 acres, you are not impacted at all.”

In fact, Rosenberg said once developed, the property, which is currently zoned for agriculture, will likely be valued at $75 million taxable value, generating $1.6 million in property taxes to the city, county, Taylor Independent School District and other entities.

“It’s obviously a pretty significant tax benefit to the Taylor ISD without generating any new students,” Rosenberg said.

At the meeting, Mayor Brandt Rydell pointed out that a vast majority of the property lay along the floodplain at Mustang Creek that the city hopes will become park land.

“I know we have talked about, as we expand out our parks system, us having this greenbelt along Mustang Creek as part of our Master Plan for the growth of Taylor,” Rydell said. “How would that be taken into account for the park’s improvements? We don’t have a park yet, but we would like this to be part of our system.”

Yantis said this was more than a small possibility.

“We haven’t just talked about it, we have actually adopted that in your comprehensive plan and put the trail corridor on the transportation plan,” Yantis said. “And Mr. (Jeff) Stringer with Quannah Partners wants to donate all of that land as parkland because quite frankly for him, it has no value, because he doesn’t want to maintain it or develop it. But for the city it does have value.”