POCATELLO — In a move billed as necessary for the planned commercial and residential development of the Northgate area to become a reality, the City Council voted Thursday to establish a tax increment financing district for that section of northeast Pocatello.

The only council member to vote against creating the tax increment financing, or TIF, district was Roger Bray, who prefaced his vote with a statement about several concerns he has regarding the impact the district may have on Gate City taxpayers who don’t live in the district.

“I’m not against this, but I don’t think it has been studied accurately,” Bray said. “It’s a huge footprint that we are looking at. We have one of the most successful TIF records in Idaho and I want to protect that. I just don’t feel like I have received the facts from the other side.”

Bray said that in conversations with many people, whom he did not specifically identify but described as people with experience working with TIF districts in the past, the overall feeling he’s received is that the Northgate TIF district could potentially be a tax-consuming entity that could hamstring other development or municipal needs outside of the TIF district.

The developers involved in Northgate have previously said that they need the TIF district in order to develop the area. Their plans include building industrial parks for commercial businesses as well as constructing thousands of houses in Northgate. If all of the Northgate development comes to fruition, Pocatello’s economy is expected to receive a big boost and the city’s population could dramatically increase.

The Northgate TIF district will include 1,800 acres of land and will freeze property tax values on that land for the general tax rolls at pre-development levels. Any additional property taxes resulting from residential and commercial development inside the district — called an increment — will be diverted from the general tax rolls to an urban renewal Northgate TIF district fund and will be used to cover Northgate’s significant infrastructure costs.

Millennial Development of Utah and Portneuf Development of Chubbuck — Northgate’s private developers — are set to pay approximately $60 million over several years to build infrastructure such as streets, water and sewer lines and other public services supporting both their project and other future growth in northeast Pocatello where Northgate is located.

The TIF district funds will reimburse the developers for their public infrastructure investments over the course of 20 years. Once the developers are reimbursed for their infrastructure improvements via the TIF district, the district will be retired and the full value of Northgate’s residential and commercial development will be added to the general tax rolls.

Bray said that as a fiduciary official with the city, he did not feel comfortable voting in favor of the Northgate TIF district without studies that would indicate the impact of property taxes lost within the TIF district and how those lost taxes would affect the citizens of Pocatello who don’t live within the district.

An example of Bray’s concerns is that if so many people and businesses move into the Northgate TIF district that a new fire station has to be built. Most of the property taxes paid by homeowners and businesses in the Northgate TIF district will not go toward the construction of the fire station because those funds will be going to pay back the developers for constructing the infrastructure needed for Northgate. So Pocatello property owners outside of the Northgate TIF district will have to foot the bill for the fire station needed because of Northgate.

Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad said it would be impossible to answer Bray’s questions about the impact of the Northgate TIF district but Blad added that he believes the project has been properly vetted.

“We’ve been working on this TIF district for two or three years,” Blad said. “There is very, very little, if any, risk to the city in this TIF district. The developers will make the (infrastructure) investment and it’s a reimbursement for that development. It would be a whole ’nother ball game if it was bonded debt, which is one thing we won’t do.”

Blad also explained that Pocatello has a solid track record with TIF districts, other than the one involving the area where Hoku, the now defunct polysilicon plant, was located, which is also on the city’s north side. Blad mentioned the Pocatello Square TIF district specifically, which includes the land on which Lowe’s Home Improvement, Costco Wholesale and other stores now sit.

But Bray explained that the main difference between successful TIF districts in Pocatello and the Northgate TIF district is that the city had commitments from both Lowe’s and Costco to establish stores before any TIF district was created. Other than land purchases by Idaho Central Credit Union and Portneuf Medical Center, neither of which has announced a timeline for building on that land, Northgate’s developers have not announced any commercial entities that plan to call Northgate home.

Pocatello City Council President Jim Johnston, a real estate agent who’s working with the Northgate developers, stuck to his word on Thursday and recused himself from voting on the Northgate TIF district.