February 2015

Is the city of Sioux Falls following their own rules on TIF’s?

l3wis February 11, 2015 7Comments

According to the city;

The City has effectively and reasonably used TIF as a development incentive for blighted areas within the core of our community.

Tax Increment Financing assists local governments in attracting private development and new businesses into blighted areas.

As you can see, the city’s policy is to use TIF’s for blighted areas. So what is blighted about the current TIF request downtown? A developer is looking to build apartments just North of Sunshine grocery store downtown. Currently the Tyler building and parking exist at this location. As far as I can tell, the Tyler building is still useable and NOT blighted. Besides the expense of tearing down a building, there really is NO blight involved. So what is the TIF applicant asking for? Are they applying for the TIF for demolition purposes? That isn’t a definition of blight in my opinion;

An area of a city, often a large metropolitan city, in which most buildings are abandoned or in severe disrepair. See also brownfield site, greenfield site.

The townhouses being built across the street actually had to demolish (blighted) homes before building, and it was done without the use of a TIF. So what is the difference? There really isn’t one. I understand that property downtown IS more expensive than in other areas of town, but that also relates into a ‘better investment’ return for the developer once a project is completed. Unless the planning commission and city council can find some kind of ‘blight’ in the Tyler Building area, I recommend they deny the TIF request.

I have also heard there are rumblings of another TIF request for a new retail/office/residential mixed use building near the Washington Pavilion. The rumored proposed area is ALSO not blighted.

The mayor often talks about letting FREE enterprise do what they want to without a lot of government intervention. I would agree, and that is the exact reason why the city should get out of the business of subsidizing free enterprise with property tax rebates and let them sink or swim on their own.