Commerce Committee today considers extending term of Bridgeport harbor taxing district

Remember Bridgeport’s Steel Point project, the mixed-use Renaissance project that was going to showcase Bridgeport’s harbor and make the city  a destination? That goes back 10 years ago. For too long it has been the huge vacant space there south of I-95 on the east side of the Pequonnock River. One thing or another, including court cases, brown fields, spurned developers, have delayed it so long that the special taxing district that was set up to use sales tax and other revenues to pay off city-backed bonds is about to expire at the end of June. The Commerce Committee this morning is holding a public hearing on a bill that would extend the period out to June 2015. Here’s the link to the bill’s latest incarnation:

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/TOB/H/2012HB-05101-R01-HB.htm