By Laura Spencer
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-652464.mp3
Kansas City, MO – It's round two for tax abatement proposals in the Crossroads Arts District where rising property taxes have forced some artists and property owners to consider leaving the area they helped revitalize. Kansas City's Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, or PIEA, meets today (Monday) to make recommendations, as KCUR's Laura Spencer reports.
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The tax abatement program in the Crossroads Arts District freezes property taxes at 2006 levels for 10 years for buildings where more than half the space is used for arts-related purposes. And in exchange, the property owners make additional improvements. Crossroads Advisory Committee Co-Chair Bill Lyons says out of 17 applicants in the second round, 9 passed the arts-use test and were forwarded to the PIEA board.
Bill Lyons: "This is a difficult subject in some cases, as you can imagine, because there are no bright lines here between arts uses and non-arts uses. So we have to use quite a bit of judgment. And in the cases of those applications which weren't recommended it was our belief that the usage didn't fall within the spirit and intent of the guidelines that we have."
In October, the PIEA board approved 31 abatement requests for 18 applicants for nearly $1.6 million in tax abatements. Laura Spencer, KCUR News.