Tax sharing could fund interchange

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

In a groundbreaking partnership, Fort Collins and Windsor will consider sharing revenues with each other to hasten the replacement of the badly overburdened interchange at Colorado Highway 392 and Interstate 25.

The congested bottleneck caused by a narrow two-lane bridge spanning the interstate has inhibited development in the corridor critical to both communities. It provides Windsor's only direct access from I-25 and offers Fort Collins additional opportunities for retail and commercial development to strengthen its tax base.

Relief for long-suffering motorists likely still will be a long time coming regardless of the results. But the yearlong, $100,000 study could at least help hurry the $25 million project. Although included in the state's 25-year priority plan, reconstruction of the interchange is still many years away unless more money is made available.

"There's no question [the Colorado Department of Transportation] is more amenable when private money is coming in," said Greg Byrne, Fort Collins' director of community planning and environmental services.

That's precisely what the cooperative effort between Fort Collins and Windsor is committed to find.

The intergovernmental agreement calls for creation of a comprehensive development plan for the "corridor activity center" surrounding the interchange.

That plan will address a number of issues within that area, including land-use regulations, environmental standards and development and maintenance of parks. Reconstruction of the interchange is at the core, however, according to Byrne.

"It is clearly in need of work," he said. "It's failing."

Given the considerable cost involved, the agreement calls on Fort Collins and Windsor to consider creative financing mechanisms such as creation of metropolitan districts or revenue sharing.

Independent taxing entities, the metro districts are a traditional method of providing public services in a specific area. Revenue sharing is a relatively recent concept aimed at encouraging more orderly development through cooperation among cities rather than the competition usually accompanying their chase for sales tax revenues.

Just as the name suggests, in revenue sharing, communities agree to devise a formula for dividing tax revenues generated from an area within their mutual sphere of influence. Such an arrangement between Fort Collins and Loveland was proposed several years ago, but it withered without agreement on how to split the revenues. Locally, Windsor has taken the lead in revenue sharing, negotiating agreements with neighbors Severance and Greeley.

But Byrne said it's premature to focus on any financing mechanism, including revenue sharing. "We don't have anything on the table yet other than exploring it," he said.