City leaders narrowly approved the creation of two TIF (tax increment finance) districts at a regular meeting Tuesday. The districts are intended to raise funds for improvements to city infrastructure downtown and around Highway 62.

The 5-4 vote in favor of the measure was opposed by two couples who wanted their properties removed from the districts. They challenged the accuracy of the proposal and said it might even violate Oklahoma statute.

After 90 minutes of discussion, only Chickasha Chamber of Commerce director Jim Cowan spoke in favor of the program. A pair of public hearings on the proposal in August preceded Tuesday night’s final debate.

Mayor Zach Grayson usually breaks ties when the Council is locked on a 4-4 vote, but it was Councilman Oscar Nelson who cast the last vote for the TIF proposal after initially being overlooked in the roll call.

Tax In­cre­ment Fi­nance dis­tricts don’t cre­ate new taxes for city’s res­i­dents or businesses, but they do al­low gov­ern­ment to re­al­lo­cate funds cre­ated as the val­u­a­tion of prop­erty in the dis­tricts in­crease. Prop­er­ties usu­ally in­crease in value over time. And only 50 per­cent of ad val­orem, sales and ho­tel tax in­cre­ment cap­tured in the TIF dis­tricts will be re­tained for in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ment pro­jects. The other half will be re­turned to the city, county and schools.

The committee created to study TIFs for Chickasha estimates $35.6 million will be available to allocate to TIF projects (after 50 percent of the $71.2 million total is returned to the city, county and schools). That amount could be matched by $30.3 million in state funds.

KOOL 105.5 FM contributed to this story.