The council called off its plan to impose a special tax on Industrial Drive businesses Monday, with Commissioner Mark Hosty casting the one dissenting vote.
The plan, intended to pay for reconstruction of the street, would have called for Industrial Drive property owners to fund $2.4 million in bonds sold by the village, repaid over the course of no more than 20 years at an interest rate of 9 percent or less.
At a public forum on Dec. 12, several affected property owners voiced strong objections to the plan, stating that they had never been made a part of the process and thought the cost was excessive.
The village is permitted by state law to impose taxes on a specific group of property owners by forming a Special Service Area (SSA), but under the law, the affected property owners are given 60 days following a mandatory public hearing to petition against the tax hike.
If over 50 percent of property owners sign a petition against it, the village is prohibited from proceeding with an SSA for two years.
Hosty said he preferred to allow the property owners to take the time to think carefully about their move and allow them to petition the village if they still felt it was necessary. The SSA taxes, he explained, could potentially be deductible, whereas if the village were forced to create a Special Assessment Area, which would not include a provision for the property owners to protest, this would not be the case.
Calderone said his preference was to cancel the SSA without the petition so the village is not barred from proposing it again for a two-year period. He said though the property owners seemed resistant to funding any part of an Industrial Drive reconstruction project, he felt it beneficial to at least leave the door open to compromise.
