MORGANTOWN – Members of Morgantown City Council said they would like to see a community benefit agreement in place with Monongalia County Development Authority before development of the East End Village project begins in earnest.
A community benefit agreement is a binding legal agreement between a local government and property owner for the development of a large piece of property. It spells out community goals and sets conditions for how a development project will proceed.
In this case, the property is approximately 10 acres overlooking Richwood Avenue and abutting downtown Morgantown and West Virginia University’s downtown campus. The land was purchased by the MCDA for redevelopment in 2020 for $11.8 million with support from the city, Monongalia County and WVU.
The issue was raised Tuesday evening as city council considered two items tied to the creation of a new East End Village TIF District to support the redevelopment project.
“What I would ask is that we formally undertake the business of codifying a community benefit agreement. That we work with the neighborhood, specifically up in Woodburn, to collect their input,” Councilor Mark Downs said. “I think certainly the development authority has done a good job of outreach, but this is a long, drawn-out process, and I think it’s important to stay engaged. The community benefit agreement is an important tool in accountability and making sure that we deliver on what the community wants, quite frankly. So, I’d like to see that formalized.”
Mayor Danielle Trumble, a Woodburn resident, agreed.
“We’ve asked for some items from the development authority, and I’ve yet to see any of those. In my mind, this is a real leap of faith, and I’m not sure someone’s going to catch me, but here we are,” she said. “I would certainly like to stay on them and make sure that those things are in place and developed before we even consider obligating, committing or promising any funds to any entity.”
As for Tuesday’s action items, council voted on first reading to pass an ordinance creating the new 73-acre East End Village TIF District.
A TIF district is a development tool that leverages rising property values to repay bonds sold in order to finance infrastructure improvements within a defined area.
The West Virginia Division of Economic Development approved the new city district in December with a total bonding capacity not to exceed $20 million.
As a portion of the new district to be created falls within the city’s Willey-Spruce-Brockway TIF district created in 2014, council also passed on first reading an ordinance eliminating that existing district.
Despite being in place for more than a decade, no debt was issued for the district.
But it did generate increment funds.
According to the city, there is currently just over $142,000 available through the Willey-Spruce-Brockway TIF that will either need to be spent or returned to the various levying bodies that otherwise would have received the tax revenues captured by the district as the “increment” in the tax increment financing mechanism.
The deadline to spend or return the money is the anticipated June 30 termination date of the district. The new East End TIF will be officially established the following day, July 1, if everything moves forward as expected.
There is a plan in place to utilize those funds.
Assistant City Manager Emily Muzzarelli said the money will be used to address what she described as old trolley car garages along Richwood Avenue that have been sealed off with cinder blocks.
The infrastructure described is the lighter-colored block wall that begins just beyond the Monongalia Avenue entrance to Woodburn to the left as you’re traveling up the hill on Richwood Avenue.
“That is the primary location that we are looking to address,” Muzzarelli said. “And as soon as we finalize a vendor and how we think that we are going to do the design, we will be reaching out to those adjacent property owners to work with them.”
