I concur with Russ Peterson's list of ludicrous city spending with one
exception... "a huge tax subsidy for 50th and France..."
I may be a bit defensive, since it was my project I pushed through, but the
reality is that TIF is appropriate for redevelopment in supposedly "good"
neighborhoods, particularly, when you need to grow the tax base of these
good neighborhoods to fund investment elsewhere in the city.
The specifics of the 50th & France project include:
Edina's EMV's at 50th & France were @ $90/foot. Minneapolis, across the
street was less than $40/foot. We were leaving $50/foot of taxable value on
the table, simple because ownership of the properties had not invested or
kept up with the stylish Edina side.
The Pinehurst project (for which the TIF was offered) came after two years
of master planning in the neighborhood, driven by residents. The developer
simply picked up the plan and essentially implemented it.
The TIF was structured "Pay-As-You-Go," meaning the developer arranged the
financing, not city issued bonds. Further, the TIF was capped at 15 years,
and the finance model I negotiated w/ the developer actually defunds the TIF
in 12 years. That is very tight TIF.
Further, we leveraged street improvements and signal light changes to
improve traffic flow, eliminated two curb cuts, and got Edina to kick-in to
pay for the signal changes between Halifax and Drew, 49th to 51st.
I'll take 80,000 SF of high end retail and office over a decrepit storefront
and a gas station any day.
Steve Minn
Former Council Member
----------
>From: "Russell Wayne Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Consider...
>Date: Fri, Oct 6, 2000, 2:40 PM
>
> Consider...
>
> $120,000 corporate gift to fund a position without a competitive
> advertisement
> $11 million on top of $30 million? tax diversion to Target Corp
> $30 million wealthfare subsidy to Steven Spielberg
> subsidized high end market housing with no affordable component
> two NRP neighborhood groups crash and burn causing great expense to
> taxpayers
> a media promoted graffiti program that never happened
> a city attorney who fails to charge and prosecute
> obvious instances of racial profiling
> an airport drowning it's citizens in noise
> an lrt project completely out of cost projections
> a huge internal deficit
> a huge external deficit
> a traffic nightmare downtown
> elaborate police spending on conventions promoted by the city
> a subsidy war between to arenas
> crumbling public works infrastructure in the neighborhoods
> a huge tax subsidy for 50th and France (I can't help, but laugh when I write
> this one.)
> a target to eliminate neighborhood services at Hi-Lake
> a decrease in affordable housing
> garbage overflowing public containers
> an unclear MCDA/Neighborhood process for new development
>
>
> To be completely fair there are some positives:
> Midtown Greenway with YWCA
> wetlands restoration to clean up some lakes
> Improvement along the river downtown
> some commercial node improvements
> some additional housing and improvements to existing
>
>
> However, the positives just can't compare to the massive trend cited by the
> out of touch nature of the first list. And I'm as just to blame, I voted
> all those people into office. I guess I will be more careful next time ;-)
>
> Russ Peterson
>
> Ward 9
> Standish
>
>
>
> R U S S E L L P E T E R S O N D E S I G N
> "You can only fly if you stretch your wings."
>
> 3857 23rd Avenue South
> Minneapolis, MN 55407
>
> 612-724-2331
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Russell W. Peterson, RA, CID
> Founder
>
