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  • Spencer City Council Tables Action On ROW Special Events Use; Adopts Urban Renewal Revisions

Spencer City Council Tables Action On ROW Special Events Use; Adopts Urban Renewal Revisions

January 03, 2024 Steve Schwaller

(Spencer)– The Spencer City Council Tuesday evening tabled action on an ordinance that would regulate the use of public right-of-way for special events or commercial purposes. Councilman Brian Balk said he wants more research first…

“I would appreciate staff maybe just looking at is if there’s any other communities in our area who have something similar to this and then just kind of what some of the other communities that we use to write the ordinance were.”

The city recently has had some requests for special events in places like alleys and streets.

On another matter, the Spencer City Council also Tuesday approved an amendment to the city’s Urban Renewal Plan. City Manager Dan Gifford says the city has two upcoming projects that would use tax increment finance money. He says this change reflects that…

“Before you do a new TIF project we have to amend the urban renewal plan to include that project and the plan, so you’re telling the citizens what your projects are. So this one involves two projects. The one project is the Fridley Theatre project because we’re going to be using local option sales tax TIF in that so we need to add that to the urban renewal plan, and the other is the 24th Street construction project that will open that area, that five acres, next to Schoeneman’s.”

Gifford added that the amended urban renewal plan doesn’t necessarily commit the city to actually going forward with a project, however. The west 24th Street project near Schoeneman’s could involve the use of eminent domain, should the council decide to proceed with that project.

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