Howard County authorizes negotiations with Big Spring on Crossroads business-area TIRZ

The Howard County Commissioners Court voted to authorize county staff and attorneys to enter negotiations with the city of Big Spring on a proposed Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) for the Crossroads Business Park.

Natalie Ayala Hall of Pettit & Ayala Consulting presented the tool to the court and emphasized its basic purpose: “it is not a new tax on development,” she said, explaining that a TIRZ redirects incremental property-tax growth above a base year into a separate fund to pay for public infrastructure that supports new development. Using a hypothetical split presented on slides, Ayala Hall described a scenario in which the city participates at 50 percent and the county would be asked to consider contributing 50 percent of its real-property increment, noting that any county participation would be subject to a separate interlocal agreement.

Consultant David Pettit summarized how the mechanics would operate in practice: “for every $1 generated, 50¢ is going back into the area to help pay for the infrastructure that creates the increment in itself,” he said. The presentation included a conservative projection of an incremental taxable value of 35,000,000 and a total tax-revenue projection over a 20-year term of about 11,500,000; the presenters attributed those numbers to conversations with city staff and described them as projections rather than site-ready commitments.

Presenters also outlined statutory constraints: county funds, they said, cannot be used for the “economic development grants” category under state law; instead, county contributions would be limited to public-infrastructure categories such as utilities, streets, rail/transit and pedestrian improvements.

County officials focused questions on the mechanics and the county’s discretion over participation, term length and caps. Ayala Hall said the county could set a maximum contribution in the interlocal so participation would cease when that cap was reached, and she offered to run alternative participation-and-term scenarios for the court.

After questions and local EDC commentary supporting the tool as a marketing lever for recruiting development, the court revised a motion on the floor to authorize entering negotiations (rather than committing to participation) and approved the motion by voice vote. The authorization directs county staff and attorneys to negotiate an interlocal agreement and return any final document for further court consideration.