More Issues In the News

    A state senator appears to have derailed a major West Side developer from the fast track to state incentives.
    Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, filibustered House Bill 276, which would have approved the sale of bonds to reimburse California-based SunCal for roads and other infrastructure.
    The bonds would have been worth about $629 million.
    SunCal has already sunk at least $250 million into the development and plans eventually to develop more than 55,000 acres— an area slightly larger than the city of Las Cruces.
    Neither Bernalillo County nor SunCal would comment on what the bill's failure means for the project.
    But without the approval to sell bonds, SunCal would have no way to use tax revenue they will start receiving from the state in July, according to the bill's fiscal impact report.
    SunCal has agreements with Bernalillo County and the state that divert some sales and property tax revenues from within nine tax increment development districts. The districts cover about 4,000 acres of the planned development.
    The county has agreed to give SunCal about 30 percent of sales tax revenue from within each district and about 10 percent of county property tax revenue.
    The state approved giving 50 percent of its share of sales tax revenues from within four of the nine districts earlier this year.
    Tax revenues will begin going to the tax districts in July, but they'll remain in an account until they can be used to repay a bond.
    SunCal does not plan to sell any bonds for roughly three years, according to its tax district application, so the bill's failure may not delay SunCal's overall plan.
    That would depend on the state Legislature approving bond sales next year, however.
    The bill's failure does not affect the county's agreement with SunCal, but the county's incentives are only a fraction of the amount at stake in the state deal with SunCal.
    McSorley said there were numerous unanswered questions posed by state staff about the proposed deal.
    It wasn't clear, he said, whether SunCal's development would be beneficial enough to the city to warrant state incentives.
    The bill's failure was seen as a victory by some.
    City Councilor Michael Cadigan, who has been a critic of some uses of the tax districts and SunCal's development in particular, said the incentives would have siphoned tax dollars from other uses.
    "It's a great thing for the state's pocketbook," he said.
    Environment New Mexico advocate Lauren Ketcham said her organization lobbied against the bill. Ketcham called the incentives a "risky" endeavor that would have taken state money away from other worthy projects.
    McSorley said he has supported tax districts in the past for what he called "nonsprawl" developments like Mesa del Sol in southeast Albuquerque and for redevelopment projects.
    "What SunCal was proposing to do was completely different," he said.
    McSorley sponsored a bill that would have put a moratorium on tax district agreements at the state level and called for further studies on the issue.
    That bill, along with another that would have put a 50 percent cap on tax revenues that could go to developers for new development in a TIDD agreement, also failed in the legislative session.