Kaiser v. Aurora Urban Renewal Authority.

2024 CO 4. No. 22SC92. Colorado Urban Renewal Law—Tax Increment Financing—Statutory Interpretation.

January 22, 2024

In this case, the Supreme Court considered whether the Colorado State Property Tax Administrator’s (Administrator) methodology for implementing Tax Increment Financing, specifically, her practice of differentiating direct benefits from indirect benefits when proportionately adjusting the base and increment values of property located in an urban renewal area violates Colorado’s Urban Renewal Law.

The Court concluded that the Administrator’s methodology does not violate Colorado’s Urban Renewal Law. Colorado’s Urban Renewal Law expressly requires assessors to proportionately adjust the base and increment values of properties located in urban renewal areas but does not prescribe a methodology for doing so. Instead,  Colorado’s Urban Renewal Law imbues the Administrator with broad authority to determine how the base and increment values of those properties should be calculated and proportionately adjusted.

Because Colorado’s Urban Renewal Law does not preclude—and the Court’s precedent supports—the Administrator’s methodology, the Court reversed the portion of the division’s judgment concerning the Administrator’s methodology for adjusting the base and increment values and concluded that the district court correctly entered summary judgment.