TAMAQUA — The borough council announced Tuesday that Tamaqua is the first borough in the state designated as a City Revitalization and Improvement Zone at the Tamaqua Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
Tamaqua was chosen for the economic development and job growth program late last year, and joins the cities Allentown, Bethlehem and Lancaster as a CRIZ designee.
Micah Gursky, president of the borough council, told those at the Tamaqua Salvation Army that CRIZ municipalities have the opportunity to leverage state tax dollars to spur private investment in underutilized properties.
To qualify, businesses must be within the borough’s 128.5-acre CRIZ zone and meet other criteria. According to Gursky, the borough’s zone includes 297 properties.
“It includes most of the downtown business district,” he said.
Gursky said the state-administered program returns certain state and local taxes collected within the zone to the CRIZ area. Those funds can be used to repay debt service, to fund construction or develop a property, he said. The borough’s recently created, five-member CRIZ Authority will play a role in determining eligibility and project selection.
“There’s nothing fancy about it. It’s not new money,” Gursky said. “This is money that businesses in Tamaqua are generating.”
To determine the amount, program administrators will look at taxes collected during the prior calendar year and set a baseline for the zone. The increment above the baseline collected in the following year will go to the borough’s CRIZ Authority to fund renovation projects and new development.
“It’s that increment that they are going to give back to us,” Gursky said.
In Tamaqua, the first round of CRIZ dollars will become available in the autumn 2016.
The program is administered by the state Department of Revenue, state Department of Community and Economic Development and the Governor’s Office of Budget.
While the CRIZ designation was previously only available to cities of 30,000 or more, Sen. David Argall, R-29, Tamaqua, worked on a provision to allow boroughs and townships with a population greater than 7,000 to apply for status as a CRIZ pilot zone.
“Tamaqua is the first small town in Pennsylvania that has been accepted into this,” Argall, who spoke via a video call from Harrisburg, said.
Argall pointed to early success of the program in Allentown, a city he cited as having its share of “ups and downs.”
Thanks to CRIZ, Allentown has seen more than $1 billion in new development, Argall said.
“Even if we get 1 percent of what Allentown received, it will be better than if we would have done nothing,” Argall said.
Tamaqua’s designation as a CRIZ was announced Dec. 31, 2014.
More information on the program, including guidelines and eligibility requirements, is available at DCED’s website, www.newPA.com.