After this month’s competitive Redmond School Board elections, the board is guaranteed to have at least three new members next school year.

City officials visited the Redmond School Board on March 6 to share information about a tax abatement program for a new 156-unit affordable housing project called Redmond Landing.

No decision was reached by the school board. The project developers have signaled they will exhaust all avenues to acquire the abatement, but if they fail, they will reassess and possibly build a market rate project instead.

To receive the tax abatement, the developers of the project are required by law to have at least 51% of taxing districts in Redmond to approve.

There are 14 such districts in Redmond, with city and school district as the two largest.

The city tax district represents 26% of the total and the Redmond School District makes up 38%.

It would only take those two districts to sign off for the developer to secure the abatement. Last month, Redmond city council gave its approval.

After deputy city manager John Roberts and city councilor Kathryn Osborne visited the school board on March 6, the board said they would put off a final decision until they had further discussion.

Roberts said the city remains in contact with Washington-based Vaughn Bay Construction, the project’s developer.

Roberts said the company expressed it plans to proceed with the project only if it receives the abatement, which will allow it to build housing for residents at 60% of area median income.

“We’ve been in communication with the developer and they are not thinking about a market rate project right now, they are focused on getting this for affordable housing,” Roberts said.

Roberts said if the project is contingent on whether or not the developer secures the tax exemption, there would be no financial impact on the city. If the developers did decide to build market rate housing, all taxing districts would benefit from increased funds.

“There is minimal to no direct financial impact to us as a city other than we would not receive a share of the property taxes that would otherwise be generated by the development,” Roberts said. “Without the property tax exemption the project won’t come to fruition.”

Zac Baker, development manager for Southport Financial Services, a Florida-based real estate investment firm involved in financing the project, said the developers will do all they can to acquire the abatement to keep Redmond Landing affordable. He said if the school district doesn’t accept the abatement, the developer will go to other taxing jurisdictions in Redmond for approval.

Baker said if the tax abatement fails, there is a chance, after further assessment, that the developers will proceed with a market rate project.

“I have never seen us build a market rate community,” Baker said. “We always find a way to make it affordable.”

Baker said he has also never seen a project like this get denied a tax abatement.

“We call it three dimensional chess, because it is complicated,” Baker said of the process of securing such tax exemptions.

Kathy Steinert the director of fiscal services for the Redmond School District, said there would be a fiscal impact for the district if it were to approve the tax exemption for Redmond Landing. She said that fiscal impact is difficult to put numbers to, but said it would result due to the nature of how state education funds are calculated and distributed.

“The tax exemptions granted by many school districts throughout the state impact the revenues from the State/Oregon Department of Education that all districts receive,” Steinert said. “However, the impact is not direct.”

Steinert said Baker is scheduled to present to the Redmond School Board as a representative of the developer on March 20.

Amanda Page, a director on the Redmond School Board, said during the March 6 board meeting that the district should support the tax abatement.

She said bringing more affordable housing to the community directly helps students living in poverty, who attend school at lower rates.

“This is a project that has the potential to directly affect those kids who are hardest to reach,” Page said. “We have responsibility to those students who are the hardest to bring up in their attendance and their scores, and this seems to me as a way to do that.”