Most higher education institutions do not pay property taxes, leaving the cities that host them with a gaping revenue loss, but negotiated agreements to bridge that divide are becoming more common.
The Finance Director at the time of the attempt to get Duke to agree to a PILOT was John Peterson who is not the City Manager of Myrtle Beach SC. The city manager at the time was Orville Powell who back now is living in Durham. You might try to talk to both of them for the history of that 1990s attempt.
This was tried in the early in the 1990s (not absolutely sure of the dates but absolutely sure it was tried) and met with astounding resistance from Duke. It ended with nothing. They brought out all the revenue that they "bring" to Durham. Duke at that time paid Durham some mutually calculated amount for fire service - and had been doing that for a while. Not sure if they still do. And in fairness I have to mention that Duke did, and may still, financially support affordable housing through the land bank that Self Help Credit Union managed.
@Sandy We are hoping to get into some of the details of past attempts of PILOT in Durham in future parts of this series. And other sources, namely the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy paper, cited that Durham and the Duke Medical Center had a $300,000 PILOT in place at some point before 2010 to reimburse the City for fire service. A review of current City financial disclosures did not reveal that revenue. We had unsuccessfully attempted to contact the Finance Department at the City to find out if they know anything about it. We are expecting the last part of this series to focus on Duke and the ways they have reported community contributions.
The Finance Director at the time of the attempt to get Duke to agree to a PILOT was John Peterson who is not the City Manager of Myrtle Beach SC. The city manager at the time was Orville Powell who back now is living in Durham. You might try to talk to both of them for the history of that 1990s attempt.
This was tried in the early in the 1990s (not absolutely sure of the dates but absolutely sure it was tried) and met with astounding resistance from Duke. It ended with nothing. They brought out all the revenue that they "bring" to Durham. Duke at that time paid Durham some mutually calculated amount for fire service - and had been doing that for a while. Not sure if they still do. And in fairness I have to mention that Duke did, and may still, financially support affordable housing through the land bank that Self Help Credit Union managed.
@Sandy We are hoping to get into some of the details of past attempts of PILOT in Durham in future parts of this series. And other sources, namely the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy paper, cited that Durham and the Duke Medical Center had a $300,000 PILOT in place at some point before 2010 to reimburse the City for fire service. A review of current City financial disclosures did not reveal that revenue. We had unsuccessfully attempted to contact the Finance Department at the City to find out if they know anything about it. We are expecting the last part of this series to focus on Duke and the ways they have reported community contributions.