St. Albans City residents voted on Town Meeting Day to approve an $11.4 million bond, which would be paid for through tax increment financing to support upgrades to the city’s downtown area.
The vote passed 634 to 383, according to preliminary results.
Under the proposal, $10 million is expected to be set aside for the development of a new housing complex behind city hall, which would include about 90 new units total divided between two four-story buildings, according to city planning documents.
The units were envisioned as primarily one- and -two-bedroom apartments dedicated to “workforce housing” — meaning they would be affordable for people who make between 80% and 120% of the area’s median income, which is just under $50,000 per household, according to federal data.
Of the remaining bond money, about $1.2 million is earmarked for construction costs and professional services for the city’s Federal Street redevelopment project. That additional money would supplement the nearly $8 million in federal money that St. Albans has already received to renovate Federal Street.
The final $200,000 is expected to pay for brownfield remediation at 45 Kingman St., where another housing development project is in the planning stages.
Since St. Albans first created its first district for tax increment financing, or TIF, in 2012, the city has taken on about $21 million of debt to fund infrastructure projects. According to Dominic Cloud, the St. Albans city manager, the debt issuance period for the city’s TIF district ends this spring, making this the last vote on improvements to the downtown area under the financing mechanism.
In an interview with VTDigger ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Cloud said that the city’s $10 million TIF investment in the housing project would cover polluted brownfield site remediation, parking and other site work, essentially “setting the table” for an as yet unchosen private developer to construct the apartment buildings.
Cloud said that the city could break ground on the project as early as next year, with 18-24 months of construction expected before completion.
