Marvelous!! — don’t we all just love a good local story with multiple stakeholders and various opinions! “Lake Orion’s DDA and the Lumberyard Acquisition” drama inspired my investigative nature.
I was intrigued to get the facts, understand tax and financial terms in addition to the DDA’s purpose and procedures. All the information is public as well as the meetings and minutes.
DDA’s initial concern was improving the downtown parking issues with plans to purchase the lumber yard for $2.4 million and re-develop the property.
However, through further investigation, the property can also be utilized as an extension to downtown and as revenue generating opportunities for the community.
Currently, the DDA is in the process of seeking a $5 million bond to pay for the project. Tax increment financing (TIF) is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure and other community-improvement projects.
Lake Orion’s DDA TIF Revenue currently is two times the estimated bond payment (approx.: 2023-24 TIF Revenue $903,000; estimated bond payment $401,000).
Taxpayers are protected from the debt; DDA law states that bond debt must be paid in full before a DDA can be dissolved.
Also, this property is valuable and could be sold to pay back the bonds. Property taxes will not increase due to this DDA project.
The potential development of this property can be an asset to the downtown businesses and community. Please attend the public meetings to get the facts and answers to your questions.
Linda Crane
Lake Orion
Support the DDA’s in developing the Lake Orion Lumber Yard added by mmkelley on
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If I wanted to live in Birmingham, Royal Oak, or Rochester I would’ve moved there. I don’t want to be Hip.Traffic is already terrible. I’ll vote for this if they change L.O. motto “where living is a vacation,” to “Where living Used to Be a vacation “
I see many contributors are parroting the DDA’s talking points without providing any more explanation or understanding than the DDA wants people to have.
First is that per the information provided by the DDA for their budget meeting on 2/15/2023, the desired $5 million bond will have an annual payment of approximately $384,000, as it changes from year to year, and a total cost to the taxpayers of $6,894,928 (meeting information Packet Pg.18) unless the DDA can sell off some of the property in some manner. Those payments are only guaranteed by the Village of Lake Orion’s ability to levy and collect taxes. That’s why the bond must be approved by the Village council.
Taxpayers are not “protected” from anything because they are who will be paying the bill for the next 18 years. TIF Revenue is not some sort of magic money that falls from the sky, it is your property taxes being used by the unelected DDA even though those funds were voted by the people to be used for something else, like OCC, parks, a transportation millage, and more. The public never voted for them to be used for a parking lot, or any other dream the DDA might have.
Finally, if the DDA is going to spend around $400,000 a year to have a parking lot, what are they no longer going to be doing? The DDA has a budget of around $1 million per year. Now almost half of that will have to be used to pay off this proposed bond. That means the money will not be available to do what the DDA has done in the past, or anything else in the future.
If you think the Village of Lake Orion should be known for their fine parking lots, and really don’t care what it costs, this is your opportunity. I think we can do much better.