Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Thanks for the clarification

Thanks for the hospital update. I new it was in the CEDA area, but it looked like to me that it was a fairly large facility and would then be a larger water user.

Is the water the city sells to the CEDA area the only revenue they receive from the CEDA? If the city didn't supply the water there, would the CEDA have ever happened?

Poor ol'... city gettin' kicked in the teeth again.

By Splain

Lessons learned

This should be a lesson learned by the City of Pickerington. In March of 1996 the City of Pickerington and Canal Winchester entered into a water/sewer agreement. The agreements (one for sewer one for water) stated that Canal Winchester would provide sewer service to areas directly south of the city limits all the way down to U.S. 33. In turn Pickerington agreed to provide water service to the area all the way down to U.S. 33.

I believe I have heard the figures of around $8 Million in investments by the City of Pickerington water users to build and expand their water plant. In the agreement both parties agreed to charge the same rates they would to their own residents. So to answer the first question the only return Pickerington water users received back from this agreement was their tap fees and user fees. NO OTHER REVENUES came to Pickerington.

However on the Canal Winchester side they worked a real deal. Since Canal Winchester was going to provide sewer service to both the Villages at Sycamore Creeks and Fox Glen (nearly 1,300 homes) both of which are located in the City of Pickerington they worked a deal with the builders Dominion and M/I homes (they had formed an LLC) to pay their tap fees UP FRONT and thus the $5 Million in tap fees financed the Canal Sewer plant expansion to provide for their 2.5 MGD sewer plant. So in effect the residents in the two above Pickerington City sub-divisions (Fox Glen and Sycamore) and located mostly within the PLSD paid for the sewer service of the Canal Point Industrial park. This area also provides the roof tops for the new retail establishments going in down along U.S. 33 and Diley Road.

Former Councilman Tim Shankland negotiated the deal and it was fully understood by the then Mayor Lee Gray that Pickerington would be allowed to annex down along the east side of Diley Road to recoup some of the city?’s utility users investments.

Without the taxpayers and utility users of the City of Pickerington that Canal Pointe industrial Park would have never happened or at the very least it would have been delayed and with great expense to the residents of Canal and Violet Township. The CEDA agreement would never have been possible.

One other point we should all keep in mind. Cities and local governments in general are allowed to borrow by state law up to 10.5% of their assessed value. Pickerington has a debt limit of around $40 Million currently. Much of the debt incurred by the City was ?“General Obligation?” debt which counts against the 10.5% debt limit. So I doubt the Pickerington City Leaders agreed to obligate the city taxpayers with this burden without some thought that they would be allowed to annex east of Diley in the Violet Pointe area PRIOR to going into these agreements. I say that with confidence because more than one person in our city government present at this time has told me that. In other words it passes the smell test.


My advice to the new council make sure the agreements you sign or pass are iron clad. PROTECT the Pickerington tax payers and don?’t allow loop holes to later be exploited by new governments or newly elected leaders in neighboring communities. No matter how you look at the CEDA area Pickerington got the short end of the stick. Let?’s ensure it doesn?’t happen again and protect our debt limit and our taxpayers and utiliy user's investments.

Is the hospital non profit

Hi Ted,

To the best of your knowledge is this hospital non profit? If so, does it meet the criteria to have property taxes waived?

No property taxes

Yes; I believe this new facility will be a non-profit and qualify to have its property taxes exempted.

I wanted to make sure those posting realize that this is not a full service hospital. It will probably be closer to a local trauma center than an urgent care facility. It will not offer most services you would expect from a hospital.

That is important to keep in mind. Most of the more common services like cancer treatment and heart treatments will be at the major facilities located in Columbus. I know there are those that say we can develop satellite facilities to support this Hospital. That may be years out before any of that happens. With the limited services at this facility it will also determine what kind of doctor?’s office locate near it as well.

On the property tax front that is a small part of the revenue expected from these kinds of facilities. With Pickerington having only a one percent income tax the property taxes from an unabated commercial development only accounted for around 10% of the revenue coming from that development. Canal Winchester has a 2% income tax and that will probably provide 95% of any potential revenues. Unfortunately workers in a school district that don?’t live in that school district pay nothing to the local school district.

So this hospital facility will provide income tax revenues to the Village of Canal Winchester and they must then share it with Violet Township who in turn maintains the roads. It will provide no income for the Canal Winchester schools nor the City of Pickerington.

I did read a week or so ago about a proposed TIF to build a road back to the Hospital. I believe that TIF was to include the Meijer store. I guess the question I would have is how do you have a TIF to include this Hospital facility and it is paying no property taxes? At the very least the Hospital would not be paying any payments in lieu of taxes for a road.



By Ted Hackworth