Development

Is it time the TIF program be expanded (changed) to where it is really needed?

l3wis October 15, 2013 9Comments

As many know, Detroit Lewis isn’t a fan of TIF’s, but I am not exactly opposed to ALL TIF’s. A TIF to build a luxury hotel or condos just doesn’t make sense to me, but to clean up neighborhoods and offer affordable housing, now that makes sense. It seems the SPECIALS in town have got a corner on city hall and totally backwards when it comes to TIFs. My new favorite reporter Atyeo at the AL did a fine story of how the city is helping out the ‘little guy’ for cleaning up affordable housing;

He learned about the city’s rehab program through a mailer. Property owners can loan up to $25,000 over five years with 3 percent interest. The first six months of the loan are interest-free, and no payments are required.

This is a wonderful program and similar to a program I took advantage of after purchasing my home, community development. I believe my interest rate was either 2 or 3% to fix my windows and rain gutters. While the program has it’s merits I have often wondered if TIF’s would be a better way to clean up neighborhoods and affordable housing. NOW don’t quote me on this, but I kind of remember Darrin Smith mentioning there would have to be a change in State Law to make TIF’s available to private property owners. But what makes an individual who owns several rental properties different then a large scale developer? If this person is willing to take a risk to fix up existing properties to make them better why not offer them a property tax break (TIF) and pass that savings on to the renter?

TIF’s are good, if used properly, and I believe this would be a great way of using them, but hey we don’t need any more affordable housing, just more condos and luxury hotels 🙁

Do developers in Sioux Falls really need taxpayer incentives?

l3wis October 1, 2013 2Comments

So what do the ‘poor’ developers in town think about this?

Sioux Falls building permits continue on record pace.

As predicted, total construction value for the year has already topped more than half a billion dollars. From January through September, the total construction value of permits issued came in at $502,143,850.

New manufacturing accounts for $23 million and commercial construction for nearly $36 million. The number of apartments also outpaces single family homes. New residential housing totals $208.7 million.

The largest year for construction activity was in 2007 with $523 million in building permits issued. Sioux Falls is on track to break that record by the end of the year.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is fantastic news for our city and developers. It seems the economy has bounced back, for them. So as a city government we need to ask some important questions since development is doing so well.

• Should we raise platting fees so developers are putting in the 40-50% they promised originally? (Taxpayers have put in almost 13x more then developers since the 2nd penny got raised to a full penny).

• Should we limit TIF’s to affordable housing, instead of for luxury condos, big box stores and luxury hotels?

• Should there be a public amenity tax implemented on development that benefits from publicly funded frontages (River Greenway) As Don Kearney, Parks Director recently said about the RG, “The public/private property lines are virtually seamless (sic).”

• Should we continue to annex land and expand our infrastructure when there is already a lot of land within the city limits that needs to be developed or redeveloped?

• Do our zoning laws really need to be drastically changed to Shape Places, but instead be broken up in to smaller zoning laws?

It seems development is moving along swimingly in Sioux Falls, now let’s tweak it so ALL of the citizens in SF can benefit from this economic development, not just the developers.