Lawrence City Commission to hold public hearing on extra tax for library parking garage

The entrance to the parking garage near the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St., is pictured Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015.

An extra tax to fund parking near the Lawrence Public Library will get its last official review before downtown property owners are asked to pay their half of the $915,000 bill.

City commissioners at their Tuesday meeting will hold a public hearing to receive written and oral objections to the special taxing district. The Library Parking Garage Benefit District was established in 2012, and the final assessment amounts are now known and each downtown property owners’ tax bill was recently sent out.

City officials say the hearing is a chance for downtown property owners to provide feedback on the process.

“Now that we know the exact amounts, then we apply it against those proportions that were already established,” said Finance Director Bryan Kidney. “And the purpose of the hearing, then, is to make sure to answer any concerns that the process itself, that the notices and the legal steps and the publications were all done correctly.”

The benefit district charges a new assessment to downtown property owners to fund the $915,000 project that added another level of parking to the garage next to the Lawrence Public Library at Seventh and Vermont streets. The extra level provided about 70 additional parking spaces to the garage.

Without the extra level, the garage was slotted to have about 250 spaces, which were covered by the $18-million, 20-year bond issue approved by voters in 2010 to renovate and expand the library.

Downtown property owners are responsible for paying about 47 percent of the cost of the additional level of parking, with the city paying the remainder. The amount was assessed against the properties in the benefit district equally per square foot and totals about $430,000.

The benefit district encompasses dozens of properties in the city’s downtown, including addresses along much of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and parts of Kentucky streets.

The district wasn’t approved without some pushback, and commissioners made adjustments to the deal in 2012 to address several issues. One of those was exempting downtown churches, nonprofits and properties that provide for their own parking — the city’s portion of the payments now include those assessments.

Kidney said downtown property owners can prepay the entire amount they owe or pay principal plus interest over a period of 10 years.

The City Commission will convene at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.