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A unanimous vote to delay the creation of a new urban renewal district in Beaverton has left future city development in limbo.

Amid concerns from stakeholder groups that the process was moving too quickly, Beaverton’s community development director, Don Mazziotti, decided not to pursue a ballot measure in May 2011 and instead target one in November 2011.

Mazziotti emphasized that the delay is temporary. Others involved, however, say an urban renewal plan isn’t close to moving forward.

“We were trying to accomplish too much in too short of time with too many questions,” said Alec Jensen, chairman of the 23-member citizens’ advisory committee that passes urban renewal recommendations to the Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency. “We needed to push the reset button, so that’s what we did.”

Concerns began to surface last month when the group was hashing out the maximum amount of city indebtedness – the final piece that needed to be set in place for the proposed urban renewal district. When tax increment financing is used for urban renewal, a city must establish the maximum amount it will borrow for projects; repayment eventually is made with property tax dollars.

After the group established district boundaries and identified potential projects, ECONorthwest, the city’s consultant, drafted a financial impact analysis with $150 million of indebtedness.

According to the analysis, that amount of indebtedness would require the district to last 39 years. Money would be issued for projects over the first 27 years and then paid back over the following 12 years. The numbers were determined by considering the size of the urban renewal district, the estimated costs of the proposed projects and projected property tax increases and growth over the time period.

“It’s a big number and a lot of time, so we just need to be fully informed before we go forward with anything,” said Jensen, executive officer of Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue. He has a vested interest in the indebtedness because tax dollars would be redirected from his department to the urban renewal district.

The citizens’ advisory committee and the redevelopment agency voted unanimously to forgo the May vote. They also canceled their December meetings.

The groups asked ECONorthwest to conduct several more financial impact analyses for comparison to the initial one. The committee wants to see a baseline analysis as if there were no urban renewal, and then others starting at $90 million of indebtedness and then increasing by 10 percent.

“The (group) wants to see several more scenarios as well as the assumptions behind each,” Mazziotti said. “This is all about getting the right plan for Beaverton, so (the delay) is welcome from my standpoint as long as we get a better plan in the end.”

Mazziotti said the main problem is that ECONorthwest and the city drafted an approach to developing the urban renewal district based on Hillsboro’s most recent efforts, which ECONorthwest conducted. While the two towns have similarities, he said, they also have a lot of differences.

“What we’ve realized is that there are more stakeholders here and more factors to include, so it’s going to take more time,” Mazziotti said.

Mazziotti is hopeful that ECONorthwest can complete the extra work within its initial $95,000 budget. But he said that issue would not be revisited until mid-January, when the groups reconvene.

In the meantime Jensen is relieved that the group will have more time to discuss the proposed indebtedness and choose the right amount.

“I’ve said all along that (Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue) is not against urban renewal when it’s used right and conducted in a well-thought-out manner,” he said. “And we’re hoping that these analyses can help us reach that point.”

Ray Bowman, a member of the citizens’ advisory committee and chairman of the Beaverton Committee for Citizen Involvement, said additional time will benefit the plan’s public image.

“I think the general public was getting a little confused because there are so many planning efforts going on in Beaverton and this plan was moving so fast,” Bowman said. “In the end, if we want urban renewal to come to Beaverton it’s going to have to be approved by the public, so this should give us some time to inform them.”