INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis City-County Council has agreed to create the Mile Square Economic Enhancement District.

Such districts are common in the downtown areas of metropolitan U.S. cities. The district was approved with a 19-5 vote on Monday night.

Starting with property taxes levied in 2024, downtown property owners will pay an added assessment. In 2025, the funds will be administered through a district board of eight people.

Two board members will be appointed by the Indiana governor, one by the speaker of the Indiana House, one by the Indiana Senate pro tempore, two by the mayor, and two by the City-County Council. A majority of the board members are required to be property owners in the Mile Square area.

Operation guidelines for the board have not yet been announced.

Although the district board will control the spending, the City-County Council will set the assessment based on the six-year moving average of Indiana nonfarm personal income. The proposed rate is 0.1681% of the assessed value for businesses, apartment buildings, parking structures and similar nonhome structures. Homeowners will be charged a flat fee of $250 each. There is no option to opt out of the fee.

The fee should bring in $5.5 million for downtown needs including public safety, cleanliness, and homeless outreach.

News 8’s Danielle Zulkosky reported Nov. 13 that public safety would take up $1.025 million; homeless outreach, $570,000; administrative costs, $365,000; and cleaning services, more than $2 million.

Cleaning services will include street sweeping, power washing and graffiti removal.

Public safety will include safety ambassadors and security upgrades.

The district would add downtown homeless outreach with part of the funding for a new low-barrier homeless shelter. The shelter will be in the southeast corner of downtown just outside of Mile Square on Georgia and Shelby Streets. Homeless outreach will be done in partnership with Horizon House and Adult and Child Services. Funding would allow eight outreach workers, and six of them would working exclusively in the Mile Square area.

Taylor Hughes, vice president of policy and strategy for the Indy Chamber, and Taylor Schaffer, the president and chief executive officer of Downtown Indy Inc., led the effort to create the district.

State lawmakers in the spring created the legal framework for economic enhancement districts.

The City-County Council will have to reauthorize the downtown district after 10 years.