Lansing residents and school board press developer on Riverbend Heights RHID, citing tax and capacity concerns

Hundreds of residents and several board members pressed Ad Astra Development and its attorneys on April 14 about the Riverbend Heights proposal and the city’s request to form a Residential Housing Incentive District (RHID), saying the arrangement would divert tax revenue from Lansing schools and could create more students than the district can accommodate.

Public commenters raised funding and capacity concerns. Paul Cromer told the board he had reviewed the developer’s feasibility spreadsheet and said it used outdated mill levy figures and misstated tax calculations for annexed parcels. “Please don’t be misled into thinking that you will not lose money,” Cromer said, urging the board to prepare a resolution to reject any RHID approved by the City of Lansing on April 17.

Other residents made similar arguments. Scott Tenner said the district could lose “$6,000,000 or more” in revenue and would face choices such as cutting services or raising taxes. Trina Guilford, Betty Kleinitz, Janie Mann and several other Lansing residents told the board they oppose using tax revenue to subsidize developer-paid infrastructure when school funding and facility needs already concern voters.

Ad Astra’s attorney, Joseph (“Joe”) Oakes of Polsinelli, presented the Riverbend Heights plan and fielded detailed questions from the board. Oakes described the proposal as a roughly 418-unit residential development on McIntyre Road and said the RHID is intended to capture only “incremental” tax revenue created after development — revenue that, he emphasized, does not exist today. He described the RHID as a pay-as-you-go reimbursement mechanism for infrastructure the developer would build up front and said the developer had revised its original proposal to an 80/20 split (developer keeps 80% of the captured incremental taxes; 20% shared among taxing jurisdictions) to respond to stakeholder concerns.

Oakes also presented figures from the developer’s financial model. He said the developer’s analysis projects about 0.5 students per home (roughly 209 students from 418 units) and argued that, because Kansas school funding is largely distributed via state aid per student rather than local mill levies, the district would receive additional state funding for the added students. Oakes said his team’s modeling showed the RHID’s net fiscal impact to the district would be neutral to positive over time and that captured taxes would reimburse the developer for approximately $27 million in infrastructure costs while private investment would deliver vertical development estimated near $123 million.

Board members and staff asked for clarity on several points: how quickly homes would be built (Ad Astra said it expects roughly 40–60 starts per year in early phases, possibly averaging about 50 per year), who the intended homebuilder(s) would be (not named at the meeting), how many students the development would actually add to the district, and how quickly the captured taxes would be returned to the tax rolls if the RHID reimbursed the developer faster than projected. Superintendent Marty (presenting as district staff) confirmed the district’s facilities and enrollment reports have shown flat population growth historically, and both board members and speakers urged deeper demographic and capacity analysis before any district-level vote.

Board members also described meetings they had held with city officials and the developer’s representatives, and several said the facilities committee had emphasized the district’s immediate maintenance and capacity needs. The board asked the developer and the city for further detail and invited the district’s financial advisor to run independent projections comparing tax outcomes under multiple scenarios — faster vs. slower home build-out and higher or lower student-per-home assumptions.

No formal board vote on the RHID request was taken at the meeting. The city’s hearing was scheduled for April 17; the developer asked the city to open and continue the matter to May 1 to allow additional public discussion and review. Several speakers urged the board to reject any RHID that the City of Lansing ultimately approves without stronger protections for the school district’s capital needs.

Ending: The board left the Riverbend Heights discussion open and asked staff to arrange further analysis with the district financial adviser and to coordinate a public discussion with the city before the board takes a formal position. Members of the public continued to circulate petitions and asked the district to track the city’s RHID agenda closely in coming weeks.