AUBURN – City officials are scrambling to square three tax incentive plans with the state and keep road improvements around the Auburn Mall and along Mount Auburn Avenue and Turner Street on schedule this summer.

“We want construction on those road improvements starting on April 15, and we are still planning on that,” said City Economic Development Director Roland Miller. It could involve rewriting one TIF district approved in September and finding alternatives to two others.

“There are too many options, too numerous to mention right now,” Miller said Wednesday. “I’m just trying to prepare the straightest path so we can just get the work done.”

The state approved a fourth TIF deal, designed to pay for Auburn Mall renovations and developing surrounding lots, in January.

“So, it is good to go,” Miller said.

Auburn’s TIF district problems began last summer when the state’s Department of Economic Development said it had no record of two city TIFs, both created in 2002.

The city resubmitted both in September, along with the second mall area TIF.

“In the past, we’ve gotten indications of when we could expect approval,” Miller said. “We don’t know where we stand. The state has given us no timeline.”

The TIFs – tax increment financing districts – allow the city to take property taxes from the district and use them to pay for roadwork, utility upgrades and other improvements in the area or return them to developers as an incentive.

Problems involve three TIF districts:

• TIF District 9, created in 2002 in the Auburn Mall area. It was originally designed to set aside up to $6 million over 20 years to pay for road improvements around the mall, Mount Auburn Avenue and Turner Street.

• TIF District 10, also created in 2002, to pay for road, sidewalk and infrastructure improvements downtown. It was designed to set aside $4 million over 20 years. Councilors approved a $5 million bond for a parking garage in 2004. Bond payments would come out of that TIF district and parking revenues.

• TIF District 13 was created in September and returns roughly $1.75 million over 20 years in property tax revenue from Kohl’s and the Mt. Auburn Plaza development, to developer George Schott. Remaining property taxes are deposited in TIF District 9 to help pay for road work.

“The way it is written, that money is just put into District 9,” Miller said. He is rewriting it to explain how the money will be spent and hopes that will be enough to get state approval.

He’s working on alternatives for the other districts, in case the state does not approve them, but said it’s too early to discuss publicly.

“We have various options, but talking about the ifs, the who-knows and speculating through the media right now is not a good idea,” Miller said. “And of course, if the state does decide to approve TIF District 9, all of this is moot.”

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