Council Feb. 4 workshop on TIF, Master Plan and budget

posted on 2/2/2026

The City Council will hold a workshop session on Wednesday, Feb. 4, starting at 7 p.m. in City Hall’s Council Chambers.

The Council discussions will include an overview of tax increment financing (TIF) and Dover’s Master Plan. They will also review the goals the City Council drafted during its Jan. 24 goal-setting workshop, and receive a budget primer.

The City Council established two TIF districts in 2014: the Downtown Dover Tax Increment Finance District and the Waterfront Tax Increment Finance District. When a TIF district is authorized, the assessed values and property tax revenues within the TIF are essentially frozen. The property tax revenue from these assessed values continues to flow to the city’s General Fund. However, the future incremental increases in property tax revenues realized through increased assessed values are captured in a dedicated fund used to pay for the infrastructure improvements within the TIF. Once the improvements are paid for, the TIF is dissolved, and 100% of the property taxes generated go to the city’s General Fund. Authorized by state law, TIF districts are to encourage commercial development in specific areas of the community that are not expected to occur on a timely basis.

The Master Plan is a comprehensive plan to guide a community’s long-term development. State law requires a municipal planning board to adopt a master plan that contains, at a minimum, a vision section and a land use section for adopting a zoning ordinance. Dover’s Master Plan contains those as well as additional chapters on Transportation, Recreation, Stewardship of Resources, Conservation and Open Space, and Climate Adaptation, which are updated on a rolling basis. The Planning Board is currently reviewing the draft update to the Land Use Analysis Chapter, and plans to start the update process for the Transportation Chapter.

The budget primer comes a week before City Manager J. Michael Joyal, Jr. presents his proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, which will occur during the City Council’s meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 11. During the budget season, City Manager Joyal releases a weekly newsletter that recaps any budget-related presentations and a look ahead to what will occur the following week. Sign up for the newsletter at bit.ly/doverdownload, and select "Budget Revealed" from the list of newsletters.

The workshop will be televised on DoverTV and online.