Finally a body of government has figured out TIF’s are a joke and just a handout to developers;

The Cass County Commission on Wednesday, July 5, rejected a developer’s request for public funding to finance the redevelopment of a property near Island Park, a financial boost that was already approved by the Fargo City Commission just last week.

The Fargo City Commission actually approved the TIF with only one dissenter, and he was doozy;

The project itself is a fine idea, Strand said, but he questioned if the city should be financially supporting it.

“I just don’t know if it’s our job as a city to partner to do that,” Strand said. “I just don’t know that’s our role, or what we should be doing… there’s lots of folks buying properties, remodeling and demolishing, but they don’t always come to us to have a 300,000 dollar investment in that.

Unlike Sioux Falls where the counties and school board just rubberstamp the city’s TIF proposals, Cass County said, NO WAY!

Strand is correct, it is NOT the responsibility of taxpayers to help fund condos. Maybe Sioux Falls needs to learn this. Just a few years ago we gave out over $50 million in TIF’s for attached parking garages to condos. While the developers are seeing millions in tax breaks and benefits there is very little ROI for taxpayers.

I actually wouldn’t be against TIFs if they helped with affordable housing and were much shorter;

“Coming at this with $300,000 (taxpayer) dollars for five units, the math for me is not even close to working,” Peterson said, adding he’d support a cheaper, five year TIF for the project.

That is what often cracks me up about TIFs, they last so long there really isn’t an ROI for taxpayers. By the time the TIF expires the property has probably changed hands a few times and the developers of the project are laughing all the way to the bank.

So you mean some cities still believe in the FREE Market and private investment;

Earlier this year, the Fargo City Commission declined Hyde’s request for $5 million in tax increment financing for site development for the project but he says he was able to negotiate both a lower price for the property and the bid for site work and was able to get the model to still work.

Pretty crazy how the developer could figure out a way to invest in the property even after the TIF was denied. Even this story from September 2020 shows how Amazon turned down incentives in Fargo;

Amazon has reportedly not asked for any local tax breaks.

While Amazon technically didn’t get direct TIFs or tax breaks from the City of Sioux Falls either, the park they are at has gotten millions in infrastructure upgrades from taxpayers and will continue to benefit from the $94 million dollar TIF recently given to the park. I have argued for a long time that the developers in this community have plenty of private investment without needing TIFs. But when you turn on the candy trough, they all come to feed. If I were the mayor or a city councilor I would have ended TIFs a long time ago in this city, the welfare program for the super rich.