On November 16th, Governor Walker will sign into law Assembly Bill 179, legislation authorizing cities and villages to create multijurisdictional tax increment financing districts (MJTID).   The legislation, which was among NAIOP-WI's top legislative priorities, received unanimous support in both houses of the legislature.

Under the bill, municipalities must enter into an intergovernmental cooperation agreement before creating a MJTID. The agreement must specify a number of items including the proposed membership of the joint review board, a binding dispute resolution process, and procedures for amendment of the project plan or boundaries of the MJTID.

In addition, the district itself must be contiguous, its borders must contain territory in all municipalities that are a party to the agreement, and at least one parcel in each municipality must touch at least one parcel in at least one of the other municipalities. The MJTID may not become a donor TID or receive tax increments from a donor TID. Finally, the MJTID may not incur project costs for an area that is outside the boundaries of the MJTID

The new law will go into effect on October 1, 2012.

On October 26th, the Natural Resource Committees for both the Wisconsin State Senate and Wisconsin State Assembly held a joint hearing on the Special Session Senate Bill 24, legislation which seeks to make a number of changes to state environmental regulations and permit processes. This legislation includes all of the proposed changes to the DNR's permitting process for activities near navigable waterways contained in Assembly Bill 177, which is another NAIOP-WI legislative priority. The changes include:

• Limiting the number of times the DNR can request additional information from permit applicants after the permit application has been submitted
• Requiring permits to be approved if the DNR cannot find a reason to reject the permit after a certain period of time (also known as "presumptive approval")
• Shifting the burden of proof in contested case hearings to the person challenging DNR decision. Currently, this is the case for all decision EXCEPT wetland permits and de novo proceedings.

While the legislative committees will likely amend the bill, key members of the committee have indicated that significant changes will not be made to the DNR permitting process modifications described above. Amendments to the bill will likely be introduced within the next week or two, with the committees voting on the bill shortly thereafter.

If you have any questions regarding these changes, please feel free to contact me.