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Housing and Economic Development <br />• Support TIF for neighborhood recovery efforts in the wake of the foreclosure <br />crisis; <br />• Consider creating an inter -disciplinary TIF team to review local exception TIF <br />proposals, using established criteria, and make recommendations to the <br />legislature on their passage; <br />Metro Cities encourages the State Auditor to continue to work toward a more <br />efficient and streamlined reporting process. There are an increasing number of <br />noncompliance notices that have overturned longstanding practices or limited <br />statutorily defined terms. The Legislature has not granted TIF rulemaking <br />authority to the State Auditor and the audit powers granted by statute are not <br />an appropriate vehicle for making administrative or legislative changes to TIF <br />statutes. If the State Auditor is to exercise rulemaking authority, the <br />administrative power to do so must be granted explicitly by the Legislature. The <br />audit enforcement process does not create a level playing field for cities to <br />challenge the Auditor's interpretation of statutes. The Legislature should <br />provide a process through which to resolve disputes over TIF policy that is fair <br />to all parties; <br />• Clarifying use of TIF when a sale occurs after the closing of a district; <br />Revise substandard building test to simplify, resolve ambiguities and reduce <br />continued threat of litigation; and <br />• Amend TIF statute to address, through extending districts or other mechanisms, <br />shortfalls related to declining market values during economic crises. <br />3-L Eminent Domain <br />Significant statutory restrictions around the use of eminent domain enacted by the MN <br />Legislature in 2006 have resulted in higher public costs for traditional public use projects <br />like streets, parks, and sewers, and have all but restricted the use of eminent domain for <br />redevelopment to cases of extreme blight or contamination. <br />The proper operation and long term economic vitality of our cities is dependent on the <br />ability of a city, its citizens and its businesses to continually reinvest and reinvent. <br />Reinvestment and reinvention strategies can occasionally conflict with the priorities of <br />individual residents or business owners. Eminent domain is a critical tool in the <br />reinvestment and reinvention process and without it our cities may deteriorate to <br />unprecedented levels before the public reacts. <br />Metro Cities strongly encourages the Governor and Legislature to revisit the 2006 <br />eminent domain changes to allow local governments to address redevelopment <br />problems before those conditions become financially impossible to address. <br />Specifically, the Legislature should: <br />32 2016 Legislative Policies <br />