Valparaiso could be in line for an economic development tool intended originally for communities along the South Shore Line.
A bill introduced in the Indiana General Assembly by state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, would allow Valparaiso to set up a transit development district similar to the TDDs established and overseen by the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority.
The RDA has approved seven TDDs in cities and towns along the current South Shore Line and its under-construction West Lake Corridor, and it is working to set up four more. The districts have incentives designed to encourage residential and commercial development around South Shore Line stations.
Soliday’s original bill to allow a TDD in Valparaiso was folded into House Bill 1046, which passed the House Ways and Means Committee on a 22-0 vote Wednesday afternoon. It moves now to the House floor for possible amendments.
Soliday told the House committee that the bill would allow a transit development district to be established in Valparaiso because it’s a member of the RDA and is operating regularly scheduled commuter bus service to Chicago. Valparaiso also provides regular bus shuttle service to the South Shore Line’s Dune Park station.
Soliday said there have been discussions on bringing rail service to Valparaiso for several years.
“That’s pretty much an impossibility,” he said.
Valparaiso’s commuter bus service, ChicaGo Dash, runs three bus routes to and from the Chicago Loop every weekday. Soliday told the Ways and Means Committee that the RDA would have to approve the dimensions of Valparaiso’s inclusion.
Sherri Ziller, President and CEO of the RDA, said she has spoken with Valparaiso officials about Soliday’s proposal for a TDD in Valparaiso.
“We are in support of this,” she said.
“It’s nice,” she added “that other communities are seeing a value in transit development districts.”
A consultant working for the RDA disclosed the Valparaiso proposal during a meeting Wednesday of the RDA’s Transit Development District Steering Committee, an advisory body with members from cities and towns that have been setting up TDDs or are interested in them.
Last year, the RDA approved TDDs around South Shore Line stations at East Chicago, Miller, Portage/Ogden Dunes and Michigan City 11th Street, as well as stations planned along the West Lake Corridor in Munster, Hammond and the Munster/Dyer border.
Consultant Aaron Kowalski told the TDD Steering Committee that discussions are under way now to establish TDDs this year around the South Shore Line’s Gary Metro, Dune Park and Beverly Shores stations and the Hammond South station on the West Lake Corridor. South Bend would be eligible to establish a TDD also, but it can’t start yet because the South Shore Line is considering moving the station from the east side of the South Bend airport to the airport’s west side.
Each TDD covers up to 320 acres, a half square mile, and can be expanded later to 640 acres. Developers in each district can use the increase in both the property tax revenue and the county income tax revenue in that district to create public infrastructure.
The RDA has invested more than $8.6 million in Valparaiso’s commuter bus service in the past. In 2008, the city received a $1.86 million grant from the RDA. It used $450,000 of that as matching funds for a $1.75 million grant from the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission to buy the first four ChicaGo Dash buses, and the remaining money to buy and improve the commuter service’s first parking lot, behind the Franklin House. In 2017, Valparaiso received another $6.8 million RDA grant for a new transit center and additional parking, now under construction next to the Journeyman Distillery just south of the Norfolk Southern tracks.
Carole Carlson contributed to this report.
