DetroitDetroitDetroit Development

Wayne County Communities Keeping Some Zoo Tax Money For Downtowns

Zoo Tax Not Just For The Zoo.. And Same Could Be True For DIA
Kate Abbey-Lambertz
By 

On Assignment For HuffPost

DETROIT - AUGUST 25: Talini (R), a 9-month old 160-pound polar bear cub swims with her mother Barle at the Detroit Zoo's Artic Ring of Life exhibit August 25, 2005 in Royal Oak, Michigan. Talini's birth was the first polar bear birth at the Detroit Zoo in fifteen years. Her mother Barle was wild born and was rescued by the Detroit Zoo from a circus in Puerto Rico in 2002. She is a first-time mom. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
DETROIT - AUGUST 25: Talini (R), a 9-month old 160-pound polar bear cub swims with her mother Barle at the Detroit Zoo's Artic Ring of Life exhibit August 25, 2005 in Royal Oak, Michigan. Talini's birth was the first polar bear birth at the Detroit Zoo in fifteen years. Her mother Barle was wild born and was rescued by the Detroit Zoo from a circus in Puerto Rico in 2002. She is a first-time mom. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

During the past five years, the counties of Oakland, Wayne and Macomb have supported the Detroit Zoo with millions of tax dollars from a millage approved by voters in 2008. At the same time, many Wayne County communities have withheld more than $756,000 of the zoo's revenues to spend on their downtown projects -- and they're considering doing the same with the newly approved millage for the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Zoo officials said they get all of the tax money they expect of the 0.10-mill tax from Oakland and Macomb counties -- but not from Wayne County. Since 2008, communities such as Grosse Pointe, Dearborn, Taylor and Van Buren Township have diverted a fraction of zoo-tax revenues to spend in their downtowns, on everything from a dog park and sidewalks to decorative pavers and streetlights, according to community officials.

Read more on Detroit Free Press

Related

DetroitDetroit Development
|
Submit a tip

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot