Businessman and Austin native Michael Heise is not happy about being charged $82,000 for what he calls "a driveway to the Cooperative Response Center.

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Businessman and Austin native Michael Heise is not happy about being charged $82,000 for what he calls "a driveway to the Cooperative Response Center." And he didn’t hesitate to say exactly that to the Austin City Council Monday night.

Heise was referring to the extension of Eighth Street NW to the north side of 18th Avenue, which would service the city’s most recent Tax Increment Finance District, No. 11. The primary reason for the district’s recent creation was to help the Cooperative Response Center relocate into Austin from its current location about five miles east of Austin, near the Brownsdale exit off Interstate 90. The city will sell a little more than 2 acres of the TIF land to the CRC – for $1 instead of its market value of $200,000 – once the city has completed the process of renovating the property. As it stands, plans show the tax increments on the CRC’s proposed million-dollar building paying the city back both for its land investments and for the road assessments.

Heise owns about 6 acres, including the True Value Hardware site, west of the TIF district. The proposed road would run up the east side of his property to CRC.

"Why doesn’t CRC build the road?" he asked. "They need it. They’re the ones who bought the property so cheap … This road doesn’t improve anything to my property. If it improved retail access, maybe I would think this was fair."

Heise thought his pleas might fall on deaf ears, but his complaints were embraced by council member Dick Lang. Lang has opposed the TIF district from the beginning because of its location in what he considers a prime real estate area. Although not against the TIF district, council member Mickey Jorgenson, who eventually motioned that the vote be tabled for further discussion, wondered whether the city could find a solution that was more fair to the former Austin resident.

"Doesn’t this make your second lot more valuable?" council member at-large Dick Chaffee asked, referring to the lot on the other side of True Value, away from 18th Avenue NW.

"If I were getting calls on it, yes," Heise said. "But that lot’s been for sale for the past five years. It’s not worth any more today than it was when I bought it.

"It sounds like a great plan, but who wants to locate here?" he continued. "You just lost a grocery store. I don’t see it happening in the near future."

Heise did tell the city he would be happier about paying the assessment, which works out to roughly an extra $1,000 a month on top of the assessments Heise already pays, if the city gave him nearly an acre of the TIF land adjacent to his property on 18th Avenue.

"I’m still paying assessments from the first round," he told the city. "I paid to get sewer and water to me. That’s why I look at this from the other end – why shouldn’t CRC pay? $83,000 is a lot of money and I get no benefit."

The vote was tabled until the next council meeting, and the issue will be discussed at a public works meeting Thursday.

"I agree with Mickey," council member Jeanne Poppe said. "It seems like an exorbitant amount we’re asking him to pay. I want to see if there’s something we can do to make it more fair."

Lang got the last word.

"We have people on Fourth Avenue fighting their street assessments … By state law, they are not liable for the assessment if they can prove it doesn’t improve the value of the property. We need to be careful about putting the city in a position where we are liable for all of the costs … I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this is a bad business deal.