CRESTVIEW — The North Okaloosa Transportation Committee believes it has found a way for local governments to raise money needed to jump-start long-neglected road projects.
Committee members want to give the idea of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District a test run in Crestview and put the money raised toward a $100 million effort to widen P.J. Adams Parkway south of U.S. Highway 90.
If the plan works, committee members such as Okaloosa County Growth Management Director Elliot Kampert think TIF could be held up to planners as a way to fund larger projects such as improving U.S. Highway 98 or replacing the aging Brooks Bridge in Fort Walton Beach.
“We want to raise local funds to bring to bear for large projects with a regional impact,” Kampert said.
To create a TIF District for the P.J. Adams Parkway project, the committee must get the Okaloosa County Commission and the Crestview City Council behind the proposal.
Attorney Mike Chesser, another committee member, said the hope is to present county commissioners with a proposed ordinance in the next 30 days or so. Crestview’s City Council will be asked to consider the same document at about the same time.
Under the ordinance, both governments would agree to set aside taxpayer dollars for road work.
Eric Davis, a planning official for Crestview, compared the TIF to a “Christmas Club account.”
“You set a little bit of ad valorem tax aside in an account that the County Commission or City Council can only use for the specified project,” he said.
Funds are accrued not through raising property taxes, but through diverting a portion of the taxes collected — those generated by some new construction or appreciation of existing properties — to pay for a particular project, according to a news release from the committee.
“Growth paying for growth,” the news release called the concept.
“The ad valorem stream that feeds the TIF savings account derives from the value appreciation that occurs as a result of the infrastructure investment for which the TIF was established,” the release said.
Kampert, Davis and Chesser recently discussed the importance of widening P.J. Adams and the difficulty north Okaloosa traditionally has had in getting funding for roads.
“Okaloosa County works as a small analog of the state of Florida in general," Davis said."Money and influence are centered in the south end of the county,south of Eglin Air Force Base."
South county interests constitute a majority of members on the Okaloosa-Walton Transportation Planning Organization, Davis said, and tend to “set priorities where their constituents are.”
“There’s a disconnect between need and where the money is,” he said.
Widening P.J. Adams will benefit Crestview by pulling local traffic off State Road 85 and encouraging development in the area encircled by those roads and U.S. 90, Davis said.
It also will benefit areas in the south county by easing the trip from places like Atlanta and Andalusia, Ala.
The less painful the drive, committee members believe, the more likely tourists will make a return trip.
About 60 percent of the traffic going through Crestview on SR 85 is local, Davis said. It is comprised of people trying to get from one end of Okaloosa’s largest city to the other or driving into town from points east and west like Dorcas or Baker.
The P.J. Adams route will give drivers coming in from the west, in particular, a way to get south of Crestview without using SR 85. Davis is confident feeder roads and economic development will spring up between P.J. Adams and SR 85.
The 40 percent of drivers who aren’t county residents, of course, are tourists likely heading to or from the beaches.
“P.J. Adams is not going to be able to reduce 40 percent of the traffic,” Davis said. “Tourists are going to do what their GPS says and take the straight route through town.”
The theory is that by removing local traffic from SR 85, the road will be freed up to give tourists an easier shot to the beach, committee members say.
“What happens in the north end of the county impacts what happens on the south end,” Kampert said.
The need to improve roads is urgent, but collecting TIF funds needed to dangle in front of state and federal sources as match money will take time, committee members say.
They suggest the TIF be created as soon as possible and the funds given at least a couple years to grow before a board formed to maintain it would make any spending plans, Davis said.
A chart compiled by the committee predicts about $40 million in today’s dollars accumulating in the fund in 20 years.
But Chesser said once the fund becomes established, the alternatives to obtain matching dollars or bond financing opens up.
“The TIF puts money in the bank, and when you’ve got money in the bank a lot of people talk to you,” he said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.