Denison council extends Preston Harbor reinvestment zone to 2073

The Denison City Council voted July 13 to extend the tax increment reinvestment zone tied to the Preston Harbor development, moving its expiration 10 years later, to Dec. 31, 2073, according to the council's meeting recording and agenda packet. The vote keeps the financing district linked to Preston Harbor in place for another decade, and it came the same night the council left a separate assessment question for the project unresolved until August.

City records identify the district as Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 2. The agenda packet describes the council's action as an ordinance that lengthens the zone by 10 years and adopts an amended and restated Project and Financing Plan for it. By that description, the item goes further than a simple extension of a reimbursement agreement. A reinvestment zone of this kind lets a city direct future growth in property tax revenue within a set boundary toward improvements inside that area.

The revised plan connects the Preston Harbor financing arrangement to a chain of earlier agreements, the packet states. A 2023 Preston Harbor Development Agreement replaced an earlier version from 2013, and the 2023 agreement was amended three times after that, most recently in a third amendment dated June 15, 2026.

The council was not the first city body to take up the change. At its July 6 meeting, the TIRZ No. 2 Board recommended the same 10-year extension to Dec. 31, 2073, together with the amended financing plan, according to the board's records. The council's July 13 approval matched that recommendation.

Council did not complete action July 13 on a separate assessment ordinance for the Preston Harbor Public Improvement District. Members continued the public hearing on that item to Aug. 3, according to the meeting recording. The packet listed the improvement district measure, which covers a service and assessment plan and assessment rolls, apart from the reinvestment zone ordinance. An improvement district pays for work through assessments charged to the properties that benefit from it.

The written improvement district policy in nearby Sherman sets more specific conditions than Denison's agenda summary. Sherman's policy states that city will not begin creating such a district until a final development agreement is approved, and it says district bonds are repaid only from the assessments pledged to them, with no pledge of the city's tax revenue behind the debt. The Aug. 3 hearing gives the council its next scheduled step on the Preston Harbor assessment, while the council approved the reinvestment zone extension July 13.