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Downtown Development Authority
From ArborWiki
The Downtown Development Authority (DDA) is a pseudo-governmental entity created by the City of Ann Arbor in 1983. The DDA has a Board of 12 members appointed by the Mayor and City Council for three year terms and a small staff.
The DDA's prime source of funding is Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. Within the DDA's boundaries, any increase in tax revenues resulting from new development is captured by the DDA, rather than going to the taxing body it would normally go to, such as the City, County, or State. (School taxes are not captured.) The Ann Arbor DDA's TIF is somewhat different than most TIFs; while TIF generally is a capture of tax increases from all sources, the Ann Arbor setup only involves TIF capture of taxes from new development. New tax income resulting from appreciation in building value or renovation does not get captured by the DDA. The TIF income is used for a variety of projects, such as streetscaping, infrastructure upgrades, grants to projects such as the Michigan Theater renovation, and other projects around downtown.
Ann Arbor's DDA also manages the downtown parking system; the DDA leases all of downtown's public parking facilities (structures, lots, and meters) from the City of Ann Arbor, and contracts day-to-day operations to Republic Parking. The DDA is generally credited with turning around a neglected and crumbling parking structure system, having rebuilt or heavily renovated several of the structures in the past decade, and has made the parking system financially roughly self-supporting.
In 2001, the DDA partnered with getDowntown and AATA to create the go!pass - an unlimited use annual bus pass available to employees of downtown businesses; the business pays $5 per year per employee to use the go!pass, and the DDA pays the balance of the cost for the pass.
[edit] Board members
Current (2008) board members are
