UPDATE III: I wanted to make a correction to some of the things being said about how the homeowners will be paying back the TIF. While I have surmised from Mr. Powers testimony last night that the repayment would go back to the developer, SF Simplified was told this from the city’s planning office;

The $2.14 million would help with the costs of getting the site ready for homes, designing, etc., and it’d be paid back to the city over the next 20 years via property taxes.

Which makes more sense since the city is footing the bill for the infrastructure, but it still puts into question what was said at the meeting last night.

Does the developer take on the $2 million in debt or the City? Is it a 15 or 20 year TIF? I’m not sure who is in charge of talking points for this project, but it gets more confusing by the day.

A city official told me today that the payback to the TIF will actually go to the bank who is giving the loan for the development, which makes sense. Oh, and guess who that bank is 🙁

UPDATE II: Finally! At the planning commission meeting tonight, commissioner Larry Luetke asks how the TIF works when it comes to the eventual purchaser. Planning staffer, Dustin Powers explained that as people purchase the homes they will have to pay their FULL property taxes then the county will pay part of those tax funds back to the developer until they hit the $2 million amount. In other words the developer is paying the full cost of the development and the homeowners will be paying back the developer thru their taxes over the next 15 years. So essentially, like Starr said last night, this is just a $2 million dollar break on the development itself, for the developer, and gives the eventual homeowner NO tax savings.

On top of that, there are NO guarantees the pricing will come in where they would like them to. The developer has already warned those prices could fluctuate (in other words go up) and there is no contractual agreement to keep the price where promised. Good for the developer, not so good for the homeowner.

*on a separate note, one of the newer commissioners called roads in a development ‘artillery roads’ instead of ‘arterial roads’. I’m not sure what an artillery road is, but if you drive around some central neighborhoods you can certainly see some streets that look like they got hit by artillery.

UPDATE: Tonight at the city council informational meeting they did a presentation on the TIF and it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that developer, not the future homeowner is benefitting from the TIF. Councilor Starr said it best when he suggested that maybe the city should just pay for the $2 million in TIF expenses (infrastructure) out of the general fund and not mess around with the TIF.

Either way, the half ass promise made from the administration, planning and the council before the last election is we were going to target affordable housing in our core, building density while cleaning up our central neighborhoods. Instead we got a ham and cheese sandwich made from Spam and Velveeta.

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The Sioux Falls Planning Commission will be mulling over TIF #26 (Items 5C & D) this next Wednesday. As you can see from the drawings below these are pretty tiny houses. I was also surprised by the floor plan in which the bedrooms were not placed next to each other with one bedroom next to the front entry.

What is curious is there is NO mention in the agenda documents about who will be getting the 15 year tax break. The developer or the new homeowner? There is also the infamous recommendation from un-elected paid planning staff;

Both staff and the development team believe this amount of TIF support is appropriate and adequate for the project to move forward, and that without TIF in this amount, this project as presented would be unable to move forward.

The classic ‘We can’t do this without the TIF.’ But again, I ask, who will be getting the tax break? How do you give a 15 year tax break to a developer who will be selling the homes? Will the new owners be getting a 15 year tax break? I’m puzzled how this will work. It appears to me that the developer will be getting a $2 million dollar tax break up front and the new homeowner will have to pay the normal taxes.

Hopefully we will hear an explanation at the meeting.

*You will also notice that the planning agenda is NOT using the annotated agenda like the city council is using now. Not sure why transparency is so hard for these folks?

Well not quite Brandon, but almost. (FF 1:30)

As I understand it the development is in between Washington HS and the city of Brandon on a current empty lot. They will use a TIF to help pay for the roads and utilities. The most affordable houses will be slab on grade (NO basements, not even unfinished), 1,000 sq ft, single stall garage, $250K.

I think a better approach would be building NO attached garage and putting in unfinished basements with egress windows so the basements could be finished later and a garage.

What is silly about this is that when we have talked about building density in our core and providing more affordable housing this was NOT what people were asking for. But it should be NO surprise since the public had ZERO input and the councilors were met with privately about the plan. This video is the first time anyone from the public has heard about it.

I think doing a pilot program in central Sioux Falls would have been a better way to go. You pick a 8 block area that needs some help. The city could use a TIF to rebuild the roads, sewer, water, sidewalks, curb and gutter and street lighting. Community Development could provide loans to fix up the homes in the affected area and Affordable Housing Solutions could demo and buy up empty lots for new housing in the area. Building slab on grade houses next to Brandon with no apparent public transit service will do little to solve our affordable housing issues in the core of Sioux Falls.

This bond election was in NO way in comparison to the SFSD.

First by the numbers, this was a $17 million dollar bond, heck, the SF City Council passes bonds like that every other week. Our bond issue was $300 million with interest.

But the bigger point was the Brandon School District asked for NO increase in taxes to pass the bond. See, they just paid off a bond, so instead of decreasing taxes they simply are keeping them where they are at currently. It’s called planning ahead, something the SFSD hasn’t been doing.

I argued at the time of the bond we could borrow half and pay the rest as we go. In fact, that suggestion came from school bond task force member, Mark Cotter. It would have roughly saved us $50 million in interest payments (but who’s counting?)

Also, the election vote turnout in Brandon was less then stellar, about 8.2%. While Brandon elections normally don’t draw many people anyway, I think the fact that taxes were NOT increasing didn’t really interest people as being that important. Even if it would not have passed, they would have found a way to keep taxes where they are. I have never known there to be a property tax DECREASE in the region, or at least lately.

I still believe, as I told a SFSD official recently that the SFSD vote was tampered with, but NOT by the counters, but by the people who entered them into the system. I guess we will never know because the district wouldn’t allow us to have an independent audit of the results without paying them to supervise our efforts. How is that independent?

A citizen from Brandon informed one of my foot soldiers today that the city hired Mayor Bucktooth and Bowlcut’s former Communications Specialist for a project.

Heather Hitterdal has her own marketing company. Brandon is paying her $25K to ‘improve their image’. I guess the crappy water in town is causing PR problems. Yah think?!

Instead of hiring a marketing person, they need to hire an engineer that specializes in city water supply.

I guess this citizen got concerned because he saw Ms. Hitterdal is named in the lawsuit against the former mayor for his flying elbows.

UPDATE: Tim was on Belfrage this morning and explained why he thinks he was censured. He was one of six councilors to vote against hiring new police chief and he posted comments by a RESIDENT (not from him) on FB. The RESIDENT, not Tim, was accusing the city of fraud.

Start this fantastic video at 1:24;

I like how the Clerk practically yells out the charges, and the city posts this on there front page of website;

Not sure why there is large tubs of ice cream in front of the council, and I’m not even sure if Tim did anything wrong. But I find it a bit disturbing that they would censure a fellow peer without ZERO discussion, or allowing him to defend himself.

I think I am going to personally BAN myself from Brandon ‘Weirdsville’ South Dakota. I feel better already.