BY ALICIA FEYERHERM
Tiger Media Network
The City Commission approved rezoning requests and scheduled a public hearing during Thursday’s commission meeting.
The first rezoning request was to rezone 2460 East 27th Street from an Agriculture District to a Light Industrial District.
Director of Public Works Jesse Rohr said that L&A Enterprises has owned the property since 2012. By rezoning, they will be able to expand the services of their existing business.
According to the Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map, the area is designated as commercial.
“That’s one of the main tools we look at, the planning commission looks at, when doing a rezoning, is how it rates as compared to the Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map,” Rohr said. “Light Industrial and Commercial are as close and compatible as any two zone districts that you can get.”
Light Industrial has several Uses by Right.
Under certain conditions and approvals, facilities outside of this list may be approved.
The rezoning request was unanimously approved by the Hays Area Planning Commission and was approved unanimously by the Commission.
The next rezoning request was for a different parcel of the same property. The request was to rezone 2470 East 27th from Commercial General District to Light Industrial.
The request was approved unanimously by the Commission.
Assistant City Manager Jarrod Kuckelman then reviewed resolutions relating to the Exit 157 24/7 Travel Store development.
The developer is seeking a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and a 2% Community Improvement District (CID) for a 7.3-acre travel plaza. The area will include fuel stations, EV charging stations, a restaurant, a dog park, and RV campsites.
A TIF is an incentive that captures the incremental property tax gains within the TIF District. TIF revenues are captured for 20 years and go towards eligible costs such as land site prep, streets, utilities, streetlights and sidewalks.
“These eligible costs tend to be infrastructure related and they’re not for any sort of vertical construction or building,” Kuckelman said.
The TIF revenues would be collected on a pay-as-you-go basis, so the developer must pay for the improvements up front and then receive reimbursement as the improvements are completed.
“If the developer doesn’t build or create anything, that means there’s no revenue created, which means there’s nothing for reimbursement for them,” Kuckelman said. “So then this kind of creates the incentive for them to create that build and create those revenues to then get reimbursed from.”
Over the next 25 years, the City projects $28 million in net benefits, with $27 million from sales tax revenues. An estimated 14 jobs will be created for this project.
The other incentive requested was a CID. This is an additional sales tax on retail sales, added to the district or property.
CIDs can be used for several purposes, including covering costs of vertical construction, infrastructure, parking, land costs or engineering and architecture fees. The developers are requesting a 2% CID for 22 years.
“Basically, this is something that the land owner or the developer will choose to have imposed on themselves at their business to help reimburse for some of those eligible costs,” Kuckelman said.
The total project cost is estimated at $11.1 million, with $6,594,641 of those costs eligible for CID reimbursement. The CID is expected to generate $2 million during its 22 years.
Both TIF and CID approvals require a resolution calling for a public hearing, followed by a public hearing. The hearings are scheduled for April 9, as required by statute, to be held between 30 and 70 days after the resolution.
The commission adopted the resolutions for public hearings.
“I think this is exciting and I truly believe in that area there’ll be more to come after this,” Commissioner Shaun Musil said.
Other items from the meeting included:
- Hearing a presentation from Fort Hays Tech North Central
- Hearing an update on the Water Conservation Program results from 2025 and plans for 2026
The next City Commission meeting will be at 4:00 p.m. on March 12 at City Hall.
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