While the petitioners did the right thing by putting this to a vote of the people of the affected area, the TIF should really be voted on by the entire state. Why?
So this is how TIFs work in SD; The developer’s property is valued at a new higher rate once the project is completed, this rate is used to fund city, school and county government, except that new valued tax revenue goes back to the developer for improvements (in other words he gets a tax refund to build his personal project). So while these values are up, the money isn’t coming in so the county and school district must make that revenue up by taking it from the state which is funded by sales taxes paid for by the entire public body of the state. So while there may be a TIF in Pennington County, Minnehaha County residents are funding this TIF thru sales taxes to make up for the lack of school and county funding. TIFs are not only BAD for the effected communities but they hurt every resident in this state! Some would argue we pay these taxes anyway, and you are correct, but instead of bailing out school districts and counties we could use the revenue to improve state infrastructure. What a f’ing concept!!!!!!
“Libertyland TIF” has a good ring to it, doesn’t it? It’s so symbolic in so many ways. Leave it to West River to give us liberty or death from overdevelopment. An amusement park is one thing, but the amusing of developers is another. Wally World was once closed for two weeks, but this trek, if developed, is endless. AND, we once had Joyland Park in Sioux Falls (But Joy left 😉 ), while Rapid still has the Cosmos. Need we need more? But, if we do, I say bring back bumper boats to Rapid, and the sooner the better …..:
FF: 01:51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA1wjO6Ntb8
( and Woodstock adds: “Say, I say we add to bumper boats beneath the allure of the Bunker Ramp …. 🙂 )
This past summer when I was doing pedicab most of my patrons were visitors or folks who recently moved to Sioux Falls and the one compliment I heard the most about this place was ‘super clean’. I guess we have that!
Yes, we are ‘super clean,’ because street cleaners are slowly making a comeback. Now, if only lawn darts were a thing again. But what about lawn dart bars, uranium jars, or X-ray foot measurers?
Technically, the landowners/property holders and developers cannot get all their money back. Remember, this is called “Tax Increment Financing”, allowing the landowners (the real owners of a city) to loan the “City Government” their money for public roads, water, sewer, utilities, infrastructure, land improvements, cleanup fees, etc.
While these landowners are agreeing to invest their private incomes in their property development, which increases the valuations of their property in the future, thus increasing their property value from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 million dollars, they can only submit public expenses of up to 25% of $1,000,000 million.
This means, for their agreement to use their own private money for public roads, lighting, sewer, water, infrastructure, they can submit expenses up to $250,000 thousand dollars for using their money for public improvements generally paid by the city government.
So the amount the City agrees to pay is the “TIF Value of $250,000” in future years, which becomes a liability on our public books.
The CITY cannot pay for anything that is considered private, the law prohibits that, but ‘we’ can in fact, create a few basic rules, that TIFS shall be prohibited to such capital projects that promote Affordable Housing, while ‘we’ agree to pay back the property owner for their investment in “Public Things”.