On the Sioux Falls city council agenda Tuesday night you will see a little tidbit in item #7, approval of contracts, sub-item #4;
Don’t be fooled by the title, this interest free loan is a pass through from the Feds for affordable housing to Lloyd Companies. I wonder if someone will ask exactly what the rents will be for this supposed affordable housing. Once again, developer welfare for a developer that doesn’t need it.
Just imagine if we gave interest free loans to people in the core of our city to help clean up their property? How far would this money go? Maybe we could clean up 50-100 properties with sidewalk repair, roof and siding repair, windows, landscaping? Let’s go even a step farther and give mini-TIFs to property owners in these affected neighborhoods in the form of property tax relief.
I truly believe the death of Tracy Saboe could have been avoided if we would have started cleaning up these neighborhoods over 12 years ago when first proposed by Mayor Munson. NOTHING has been done. So now crime increases while wealthy developers continue to cash in on projects that do nothing to prevent crime. But hey we have a $115 million dollar dented up events center (that sits empty while we pay a $10 million dollar a year mortgage on it). A $26 million dollar bunker ramp (that has yet to open) and a $20+ million dollar TIF to a project that is in flux while we go ahead with a $11 million dollar bond to build a greenway project around it (even with speculation if the project will ever happen). Why do we keep blowing the money on welfare for wealthy developers instead of helping hardworking Sioux Falls residents to clean up their properties and ultimately their neighborhoods? Because of the greedy fools we continue to elect.
So instead of using the money to clean up these existing neighborhoods we are using it to tear down a nature area and create more density where it is NOT needed.
You are going to see a lot of this over the next two years especially with a banker on the council and only two councilors left to ask the tough questions and a mayor who is more concerned about cashing in on his 5G investments(?) (That’s the rumor going around that our local media refuses to look into because the mayor has a tight grip you know where).
One would ask where the money comes from for TIF’s. City revenue comes from sales tax. The mall, restaurants, and bars were closed 2 months. The Denty was quiet. Other city operated businesses (Zoo, Aquatics, Pavilion, Orpheum) were locked up. There was little occupancy at hotels. There has to be a cash flow problem.
Well written and so very true. Several areas of the infrastructure of this city are in dire need of upgrade and every city administration continues to ignore them. Neighborhoods are in horrible disrepair and just plain trashy looking. This Mayor along with members of the RS6 seem to be more concerned with their resume than reinvesting in any area outside the downtown area. Will it ever change??
This free money for developers does not only allow “affordable housing” to happen, but it also helps to allow low wages to continue to happen too.
( and Woodstock adds: “Say, I thought the mayor was going to get rid of the term ‘affordable housing’?”…. “How about calling it ‘Developer Welfare Housing for All'”…. )
Our leaders are absorbed with how they look on paper. This is a time for leadership. It’s especially lacking if not there at all.
Hah – this reminds me of Lincoln County hearing on a rezoning for a rural residential development West of Lennox a few years ago, wherein Commissioner Jim Schmidt attempted to characterize the developer’s proposed $450k – $500k homes as “affordable housing”.
You always make the same error in how you understand and characterize TIFs. TIFs are NOT “tax relief”. TIFs direct taxes paid (at the regular rate) toward specific expenditures (in the case you propose, buying windows, shingles and so on) rather than just dumping them into the general fund.
But “$450k – $500k” is “affordable housing” in Taupeville.