The Utah League of Cities and Towns - on the directive of Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo - is now drafting a rewrite of Utah's redevelopment agency (RDA) statute. Instead of a single RDA measure, the league is proposing three development tools that give communities access to property taxes.

"It's really the same tool - just under different parameters," said Lincoln Shurtz, a legislative policy analyst for the league.

The three are as follows:

l Economic Development - Cities could still tap property taxes for commercial development that brings "value-added jobs" to the community. Retail development would be excluded in this area.

l Redevelopment - This is a traditional RDA designed to help aging and built-out cities replace "blighted" areas. With the right approval, cities could make improvements by tapping property taxes that were headed to other agencies, such as schools, counties and other taxing entities.

l Community Development - No blight designation is needed, but cities would have guaranteed access to only their portion of the property tax. Other agencies could "opt in" and give their tax money to the project - or decide not to.

RDAs were created to help communities rid themselves of their worst blighted areas. They work by allowing cities to take property-tax increment to pay for infrastructure that is preventing redevelopment from occurring.

Bramble told the league to leave out of the proposal the condemnation powers associated with eminent domain. A bill he sponsored earlier this year prohibits the use of condemnation in RDAs, and Bramble said an attempt to reverse that would kill the proposal.

jsantini@sltrib.com