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Consultant briefs DDA on tax increment financing and district options
Summary
Carmen Aventini of C Planning gave a training on tax increment financing (TIF), explaining DDA, brownfield, corridor and local development authorities and how taxable-value capture works; she reviewed Cedar Springs’ current DDA numbers and urged broad, flexible project lists to avoid frequent statutory amendments.
Carmen Aventini, president of C Planning, told the Downtown Development Authority on the evening of the meeting that tax increment financing (often called TIF or TIP) is a widely used but commonly misunderstood tool for funding redevelopment.
"Tax increment financing is one of the most misunderstood tools that communities have available," Aventini said, adding that the typical DDA plan has two linked parts: a development plan that explains district boundaries and needs, and a tax increment financing plan that lays out how captured increments will be used.
Aventini described several types of financing authorities. She said downtown development authorities (DDAs) are the most common vehicle for capturing incremental property taxes within a district to fund streetscape, marketing and catalytic projects. Brownfield authorities, she said, capture state and local property taxes to pay for eligible remediation and redevelopment costs. Corridor improvement authorities (CIAs), created under Public Act 280 of 2005, are used for commercial corridors outside traditional downtowns, and local development financing authorities (LDFAs) typically support industrial infrastructure such as roads and sewer.
Aventini walked the board through sample tables and a simplified graphic showing how TIF works: an existing tax base remains taxable to jurisdictions while the DDA captures only the increase in taxable value above that base. Using example figures, she showed how a district that grows from roughly $20 million to $49 million in taxable value can generate annual captured revenue that funds projects over a 20–30 year term.
Turning to Cedar Springs, the presenter and board reviewed the city’s three consolidated DDA zones. According to the packet discussion, the combined base value is roughly $7 million, the current (2025) taxable value about $11 million, and the resulting captured value roughly $4.8 million; the presentation also cited an estimated 2025 DDA revenue of about $118,000 used in budget planning.
Board members pressed for practical implications: whether captured funds may be used to buy and improve buildings, how excluded parcels affect capture, and when a plan must be amended. Aventini advised keeping project lists broad in the statutory plan and placing detailed, frequently updated cost and implementation schedules in separate implementation workbooks to avoid repeated formal plan amendments under state law.
The presentation included practical cautions about public communications and the limits of local capture: "you don’t take any of your existing tax base away," Aventini said, describing the policy rationale that captured growth is intended to fund improvements that would not otherwise occur.
The DDA did not take any formal action on TIF policy itself at the meeting; the presentation was provided as background for later planning and the board’s budget and project-list discussions.
