SAN ANGELO, Texas — A special meeting was held by the City of San Angelo Tuesday morning to discuss tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) funding and eligibility with local business owners and residents.
The TIRZ was created in 2006, to encourage development and appearance improvement of properties within the north and south zones. Local businesses are able to apply and receive incentives.
According to the City of San Angelo, some of the qualifying incentives include facade improvements, paving, landscaping, fire protection, development fee reduction, asbestos abatement and sales tax.
“What we want to try to do today is try to get the people, the business owners in the north zone to realize that that money is available to help their businesses out, take a look at the facade, maybe the parking lot and to really bring their business to the forefront so that more people will stop and shop with them,” San Angelo City Council member, Harry Thomas, said.
Several of the questions asked during the meeting were about the application process. Although some were not shy and raised their concerns.
“There’s one thing y'all wont talk about, that you completely avoided and that's when this TIRZ was set up it would be the TIRZ but it would be divided in the north and the downtown and the downtown would not take from the north and the north would not take from the downtown and that was in the chart, that's the way it was set up,” former San Angelo Mayor Dwain Morrison said.
Grill-A-Burger owner Katherine Martinez took the time to stop by local restaurants on the north side. She said most of the businesses did not know about the program and the majority of them face the same obstacles.
“A lot of them, the biggest hurdle that they say is you know there isn't Spanish speakers and so they didn't really understand it. First of all, the first point was they’ve never heard of it they've never even heard of the TIRZ program. Second part is if they did hear of it, it was probably in English and they didn't understand exactly what they were talking about,” Martinez said.
Martinez has owned her restaurant for six years and recently purchased the location. She is in the process of putting the plans together for the TIRZ program.
“Hopefully this will get the process started and allow people to get a better idea of how they can apply for that money and make their business more successful,” Thomas said.
Mayor Brenda Gunter said the date for the second TIRZ meeting will be announced in the next City Council meeting.
For more information on TIRZ, visit cosatx.us