Greeley urban renewal briefing stresses council’s policy role and stricter rules for future districts

Greeley’s City Council and Urban Renewal Authority spent a lengthy work-session discussion Tuesday on the basics of urban renewal, with GURA legal counsel Corey Hoffman emphasizing that council sets policy while the authority carries it out. Hoffman also warned that any new urban renewal plan or any substantial change to an existing one would trigger a more restrictive state-law process that Greeley has not yet had to use.

The presentation, listed as Item 5, was framed as a foundational discussion ahead of later visioning talks about how Greeley may want to use urban renewal. Interim Community Development Director Donald Threewitt said the goal was to build collaboration and a shared understanding between council and the GURA board.

Hoffman told the joint group that GURA is a separate legal entity, not a city department, but said that does not make it independent of city direction. “The city’s the policymaking body through the city council, and GURA implements the policy of the city,” he said, calling that the main takeaway from the session. Under the framework he outlined, council is responsible for forming the authority, establishing project boundaries, making blight findings and approving urban renewal plans, while GURA’s board is responsible for carrying out projects within those plans.

He also walked council through the legal threshold for creating an urban renewal area, saying property must meet at least four statutory blight factors. Hoffman said the term can carry baggage, but in state law it is a defined standard tied to conditions such as deteriorating structures, unsafe conditions, defective street layouts, environmental contamination and other factors that keep an area from improving on its own.

Much of the discussion focused on changes made by House Bill 15-1348, which took effect in 2016. Hoffman said Greeley’s existing urban renewal areas predate that change, so the city has not yet triggered the newer requirements. If that changes, he said, GURA’s board would have to expand to 13 members, including appointees tied to Weld County, a taxing special district and the school district. The city also would have to notify affected taxing entities and try to negotiate agreements over tax-increment revenue before a new plan or substantial modification could move forward; if talks fail, mediation would be required.

Hoffman said those rules were meant to force better coordination with taxing partners, and he urged the city to treat that coordination as essential. He also explained that tax increment financing, the main urban renewal tool, captures the increase in property-tax value created by redevelopment while the original tax base continues to flow to existing taxing entities.

Council members used the session to test how far those tools can reach. Council Member Deb DeBoutez asked whether money generated in one tax-increment district could be used to address blight in another, citing the Greeley Mall area and a nearby abandoned hotel. Hoffman said not without a clear connection between where the money is generated and the blight being addressed. He said spending outside a district’s boundaries can be allowed in some cases, but only if there is a demonstrable nexus to preventing or remedying blight in that district.

By the end of the presentation, Mayor Dale Hall thanked the participants for what he called a useful overview, while Council Member Johnny Olson joked that the briefing went well beyond an introductory course. The city’s forward calendar points to a follow-up GURA visioning discussion in October, suggesting Tuesday’s session was intended as groundwork for later policy conversations rather than a decision on any specific new district.