Utica meeting examines fees on tax-exempt parcels as a way to raise street funds

Speaker 1, a meeting participant, opened an organizational discussion Tuesday night saying the intent was "to see what we can do and what we can't do to try to raise some money for the city." The discussion considered several models — a user or service fee, a frontage/curb fee tied to street maintenance, and targeted public-safety fees — and examined who would be affected if Utica pursued them.

The conversation centered on how much property in Utica is tax-exempt and therefore not captured by the regular property tax base. "What we've got in the city is in the grand scheme of things, we've got about 500,000,000 that's put into the whole wholly exempt category," Speaker 2, a staff member, said. Speaker 2 explained that roughly $100 million of that sits in Industrial Development Agency agreements and that once those are set aside the remaining exempt valuation would be lower.

The meeting reviewed parcel counts and possible bases for a fee. "We have over a thousand parcels...the government subtotal is 430 parcels, but only 247 have buildings," Speaker 2 said, noting that many exempt parcels are parking lots or vacant land and not structures that would consume city services in the same way. Houses of worship were discussed specifically; "There's 265 parcels, 96 of which have structures on them. And, the valuation the assessed value of those is 30,000,000," Speaker 2 said.

Legal limits and practical obstacles were raised repeatedly. "If you try to go to the federal government, to the state, to the county and say, hey... we're gonna charge you x. They're just gonna tell you no," Speaker 6, a staff member, warned, adding that higher governments would assert "home rule." The meeting noted that charging other governments or school districts could run into legal barriers and political resistance.

Participants discussed possible designs to address equity and implementation. Speaker 4, a meeting participant, suggested a voter-approved curb/frontage charge targeted solely for street work: "The only thing I can ever see what we could do, and this would have to go to the people, a vote to the people, is do some type of, curb...for the front of their curb, we would charge them so much so many dollars a curb...and then we could take that money and say, okay, every penny we get, we're gonna put into the streets." Others proposed carving out a DPW (Department of Public Works) service fee billed to parcels by frontage that would be distinct from the general fund so as not to "tax people twice," as Speaker 7, a staff member, put it.

Practical experience and history were cited. Speaker 11 said that a prior effort about 12–15 years ago produced little revenue: "Dave Williams, looked at this probably 12, 15 years ago... and at the end of the day, it went nowhere." Several participants recommended negotiating with large nonprofit institutions such as Utica College and MVCC (Mohawk Valley Community College) to secure voluntary fees, or asking nonprofits whether they would accept a public-safety fee for services they require.

No formal motion or vote was taken. Instead, participants asked staff or council members to return with options and more analysis at a future meeting. "And then everybody keeps this in mind and, Joe, I I ask you next meeting, go ahead and bring it up with me. We'll schedule it in there," Speaker 4 said near the close of the discussion.

Next steps described in the meeting included further legal review of whether fees could lawfully apply to particular exempt entities, more precise revenue estimates based on parcel- and structure-level data, and outreach concepts for nonprofits and colleges. The meeting did not adopt any ordinance, fee schedule, or binding direction.