Conference Presentation, Panel, Fireside Chat
Creating Community Wealth and New Revenue: Public Assets Workshop
Milken InstituteMatt Horton, Ben McAdams, Dina Blaes, Jason Foster, Shayne Kavanagh, Joe Minicozzi, Dan Tangherlini, Natalie Cohen
- Salt Lake County transit corridor assets are projected to reach approximately $45 billion at full market value, representing a potential 45 billion dollar increase in opportunity value against an existing total county value of 130 to 132 billion dollars, which is expected to generate revenue surpassing property and sales taxes.
- Transit-oriented development models, such as the "cookie cutter" approach around train stations, are forecast to create 40,000 new jobs, 24,000 new households, and house 58,000 people, while subsidizing development could yield about $13.5 billion in value.
- Specific hypothetical scenarios include a "Superdome" high school site development yielding $406 million and directing two percent of all property taxes to the school system, alongside a two-layer underground parking and driver's education facility that remains cheaper than undeveloped land.
- The Salt Lake County inventory comprises 1,800 parcels, with plans to shift focus toward digitizing non-digitized real estate records and adding database attributes to facilitate asset management.
- Execution challenges include the need for significant political heft and technical expertise to complete the inventory, difficulties in recruiting talent due to the current real estate market, and the tendency of short-term elected officials to overlook necessary long-term time horizons.
- Strategies to enhance community acceptance involve framing cities as "big real estate development companies" to mitigate political objections, establishing government "cohorts" to share management insights, and creating a longer-term equity management group by bridging with the existing Debt Review Committee.
- Revenue generation concepts include establishing community equity endowments to reinvest in local communities and a thought experiment where high school development revenues fund 529 college savings plans for attending students.
- Comparative examples include Destination Crenshaw in California, which is building a 1.3-mile cultural infrastructure project in response to a $2 billion transit investment, and the proposal to use potential state surplus funds of $30 billion to improve schooling and resident resources.
- Future planning involves iterating on development models every five years to adjust and measure tax value growth, visualizing data such as value per acre and 3D models to illustrate urban productive capacity, and anticipating that private market speculation will drive real estate, necessitating negotiation for tangible community benefits.
- Financial distribution mechanisms may include government checks mailed to residents to compensate for local economic activities, while utilizing high school sites to fund public education via property tax allocations.