A week after Reading City Council voted not to reauthorize the Reading Downtown Improvement District, Council Vice President Lucine Sihelnik reintroduced an ordinance to reauthorize DID, sparking an intense debate. Four other members of Council: Marmarou, Ventura, Reed, and Cepeda-Freytiz, voted in favor of removing the ordinance from the agenda, but the vote needed a supermajority five votes. Sihelnik’s reauthorization ordinance will be voted on at a future Council meeting.
Several downtown business owners spoke at the meeting, some in favor of DID, and others against DID, in a large part due to dissatisfied with the extra assessment that downtown businesses pay. 2/3rds of downtown properties, many of which receive services from the DID, are tax-exempt, leaving the remaining businesses to pay a larger assessment fee to cover DID services. The three council members who who voted in favor of reauthorization: Sihelnik, Waltman, and Goodman-Hinnerschitz, also supported a proposal to increase City funding of DID to partially offset the assessment costs on downtown businesses.
Council also unanimously voted in favor of reauthorizing the City of Reading’s ReTAP and LETRA programs for another 5 years. These programs allow property owners who make improvements to their properties to delay the tax increases associated with an increased assessment value. Councilmembers expressed concern that the residential ReTAP program could create an incentive for developers to convert single-family, owner-occupied properties into rentals. Councilwoman Donna Reed argued that the ReTAP program should only apply to owner-occupied properties, which she argued would resolve this issue. Her proposal passed, 4 to 3.
City Council also passed an ordinance increasing Subdivision and Land Development fees, which were last increased in 2009. They continue to consider several changes to parking, including provisions allowing for increased enforcement in commercial areas and loading zones, weekend and event parking rates, and decreased parking permit costs for City residents.