Brian White, candidate for the 49th Ward, proposes a different use for TIF. Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative
Nearly 300 church members, community activists and other area residents gathered in the auditorium of a Rogers Park school last Sunday to celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — and to rally around a proposal to create a special taxing district that would finance neighborhood rental housing exclusively.
Its chief proponent, Brian White, an advocate of affordable housing and a candidate for 49th Ward alderman, received rousing applause after he addressed the group.
Its chief opponent, the ward’s incumbent alderman, Joe Moore, was not at the event. “Simply put, I am shut out of the meeting,” he wrote in a statement distributed by supporters outside.
The political dustup in Rogers Park, which has roughly the same boundaries as the 49th Ward, is the latest example of how tax increment financing, or TIF, has become a leading issue in the Feb. 22 municipal elections. Candidates and voters are hungrily eyeing the hundreds of millions of tax dollars flowing annually into the city’s TIF program, an economic-development initiative financed and administered separately from the city’s $6 billion annual budget.
Tax increment financing works by siphoning off some property taxes in designated areas, known as TIF districts, and setting the money aside for corporate subsidies, infrastructure, job training, housing and anything else that city officials deem a catalyst for economic development. The increase in property values that results from development would mean more revenue for the city.
As the city struggles with annual deficits in its regular budget, the lack of transparency in how TIF money is used and the sheer quantity of resources it consumes has inspired calls for reform. About $500 million has gone into the TIF program in each of the last four years, and most financing decisions are made behind closed doors by top city officials and aldermen.
Leading mayoral candidates have taken notice. Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff, has said he would include TIF finances in the regular budget that the City Council must approve publicly. He has also proposed using TIF dollars to pay for more police officers. Carol Moseley Braun, the former United States senator, has called for a moratorium on TIFs so that the money could be used to shore up the regular city budget, while another candidate, Gery Chico, said he wanted more TIF subsidies for small businesses. Miguel del Valle has said that the TIF program should be restructured to ensure that money is flowing into “blighted” communities, the program’s original intent, rather than prosperous neighborhoods downtown, which have received the vast majority of TIF dollars.
Meanwhile a coalition of incumbent aldermen and lower cost-housing advocates has been fighting for months to get the City Council to approve the Sweet Home Chicago ordinance, which would set aside 20 percent of all TIF funds citywide for affordable housing. It has been thwarted by council allies of Mayor Richard M. Daley, who believe that it limits the city’s ability to decide how best to use the TIF money.
The proposal in the 49th Ward is a new twist on tax increment financing. Housing advocates led by Mr. White, who is on leave as executive director of the Lakeside Community Development Corporation, want to create a TIF district with the sole purpose of generating funds to preserve rental housing. Referred to as a rental improvement fund district, or RIF, it would encompass most of the ward. Tax increment financing has traditionally been viewed as a means of reversing neighborhood decline, but Mr. White said his plan would help slow gentrification. Subsidies would be provided to landlords who agreed to keep rents low.
Rogers Park has long been one of the most diverse areas in Chicago, but Mr. White noted that recent census data showed it had lost about one-fifth* of its black and Hispanic residents since 2000.
“We could do something that fundamentally changes how we protect housing in Rogers Park,” he said.
Mr. White and other neighborhood activists said Mr. Moore was enthusiastic when they first approached him with the proposal in 2009 and that he had told them he would help them enact the plan. Marilyn Pagan-Banks, executive director of A Just Harvest, an antipoverty organization, said Mr. Moore told them the plan was “cutting edge.”
Mr. Moore said he had merely promised to keep an open mind. “I told them they needed to demonstrate broad-based community support,” he said. “They have failed miserably.”
The activists and the alderman butted heads over financing for an independent study to determine whether the ward qualified as a TIF district; Mr. White eventually secured grant money to pay for it. Mr. Moore said he wanted to create a task force to study the issue further; Mr. White said he saw this as a stalling tactic.
In October, Mr. White decided to challenge Mr. Moore’s re-election bid. He said the TIF proposal was just one of his ideas for bringing “balanced development” to the ward.
Mr. White said he received an angry call from Mr. Moore soon after he began collecting signatures to get on the ballot. “I told him, ‘The happiest thing for me would be to be working at Lakeside and supporting you on all the wonderful things you’re doing in the community, but you’re not,’” Mr. White said.
Mr. Moore maintained that Mr. White had always wanted his job. “I view this TIF proposal as part of a long-term strategic plan on his part to run for alderman — a flawed strategic plan,” he said.
The Illinois law governing tax increment financing is so broadly written that widely differing areas can qualify, from economically depressed communities to not-so-depressed parts of the Loop where the buildings are simply old.
The study commissioned by Mr. White, which was released last week, concluded that not all of the housing in the 49th Ward was troubled enough to qualify for a TIF district — though the areas that might be eligible could collect more than $55 million in TIF funds over the next 23 years.
At the rally Sunday, organized by Northside Power (People Organized to Work, Educate and Restore), Mr. White told the standing-room-only crowd that he viewed the preservation of rental housing as a civil rights issue. “The election is coming up in five weeks, and there are two candidates on the ballot,” he said. “There’s one candidate who’s going to push for the RIF, and there’s another who’s not standing with you today.” The room erupted with applause.
In the letter distributed by supporters, Mr. Moore wrote that the study had justified his decision not to endorse the TIF plan, but rally organizers “will not grant me the courtesy of allowing me to explain my position at their meeting.”
Mr. Moore wrote that by capturing property tax money to be used only for rental housing, the proposed TIF “would deprive our community of the flexibility to decide how millions of tax dollars could be spent in the future.”
The alderman noted that he was a supporter of other affordable-housing proposals, including Sweet Home Chicago, although its foes had argued that it, too, would limit flexibility in using property tax funds.
In a subsequent interview, Mr. Moore said the comparison was unfair, because the Sweet Home Chicago plan would leave 80 percent of all tax increment financing money available for uses besides housing.
He said the TIF program needed more transparency and oversight, especially in tight budget times. If the program did not exist, the taxes it collects would instead go to the regular city budget, the public schools and other local government agencies.
“It’s not free money,” he said.
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*Correction: Rogers Park has lost about one-fifth of its black and Hispanic population, not a quarter of the population, as previously reported.
So just like Wall Street, neglectful landlords want a government handout when the economy turns south and they get caught with thier pants down. Maybe they could have skimmed a little less profit for thier pocket and reinvested it in their buildings all along. Now they just want to take it from our street repairs, sewers and water system, garbage pickup, schools, police and fire protection. Nice.
You can’t give to Peter without robbing Paul. In this case, Judas ends up with the money.
It will not matter if they create this TIF district or not – if the rules for who decides on how TIF dollars are used remain the same as they are now.
The City of Chicago is currently sitting on $1.3 Billion in unused TIF funds. The TIF accounts collected more tax money than they paid out last year (2010) – while the City raised every single fee I pay. This is because Mayor Daley controls what TIF dollars get spent on … not the alderman … so creating any new TIFs is pointless until the process of forcing the city to spend the money and account for those TIF dollars is repaired.
The shame of this situation is that TIFs can do many good things – as soon as we stop the Daley Adminstration of treating them like just another political slush fund.
Joe Moore has had 20 years to get it right in the 49th ward. Unfortunately, he only shows up every four years when it’s time to preserve his paycheck.
Rogers Park needs an alderman who cares more about the community than his own career and someone with real ideas about how to address the very real problems our ward faces.
While Joe was busy banning foie gras, letting residents decide on critical issues like neighborhood murals, arranging free parking for his pals on the lakefront and lining his pockets with developer money, his ward continued to suffer. He boasts of his accomplishments, most of which were none of his doing and required more than a decade to “achieve.”
If you don’t agree with Joe, he tries to pull the bully act and refuses to provide ward services. While he claims to be a progressive, Joe is nothing more than old school Chicago politics. He hasn’t had an original, meaningful idea in 20 years.
Time to go, Joe. Step aside and let someone with real ideas, true integrity and passionate dedication serve those of us you have failed to serve. Brian White is the man to get the job done.
I’ll take today’s 49th Ward over what it was 20 years ago any day.
No man is an island. No alderman can just snap their fingers and make magic happen overnight. Anyone who knows anything about public funding knows that there is a process to everything. It takes time to build support and partner with different levels of government to provide full funding for improvements. Money just does not fall from the sky. Could the process be more efficient? Absolutely. Hopefully, the next mayor with be more open and cooperative with the funding process.
As far as the $1.3 million menu money: He’s the first politician in the country who does not use that type of fund as a personal slush fund and “rewards” program. The community decide how to spend it. I’d say that is taking the lead and setting an example of transparency.
Joe refused to provide Ward services? Can you name a specific example? Did Joe tell the garbage man not to pick up your garbage?
So many people having to leave the neighborhood during the condo boom and now so many of those condos in foreclosure is really sad and a big waste. What has Joe done about it? If somebody has an idea about how to make things more stable for renters (and owners, because we are all ultimately in the same boat), then that’s a good thing. The alderman is a fake progressive to not even support a study to take a closer look– which seems to be all he has been asked to do– and especially considering how much money and time he wastes on stupid stuff like the temporary foie gras ban and supporting the sale of our parking meters for cheap.
TIFs are a bad idea for the city, as a whole. They drain money from the operating budget of the city, as a whole, and from the units of government that rely on property taxes for their operation. In Chicago these include the public schools, the park district, the public libraries and the city colleges. The creation and administration of TIFs has been the pretty much at the discretion of the mayor with the collusion of the aldermen. Finding out about TIFs and who REALLY benefits from them has been one of the thorniest issues in local reporting and good government for years. They are a source of un-ending gifts to insiders and large corporations – such as Quaker oats, CNA Insurance, MillerCoors, United Airlines, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the guys who bought the Sears Tower. To TIF an entire ward is a very bad idea – what would happen if all 50 wards did that? Who would fund the city services?
If people want affordable housing, here are three ideas to get to that laudable goal without using TIFs: (1) put a line item in the city’s budget – that would be debated, public and firm. (2) Issue a general obligation bond for infrastructure improvements. A large coalition of social service and community groups attempted to that in the early 1990′s, (3) Increase the aldermanic “menu” to $5 million a year and have people in the ward vote on how that money is to be used. It must be used or it goes away and the residents could vote for improvements to schools, parks, affordable housing, the arts or other local improvements.
After reading this important & timely article, one is reminded of an old Latin quote by Martial which in English is: ” You publish no poems, yet you carp at mine. Publish your work or shut up.” It appears that Mr. Moore is living up to his own dismal political record of no new ideas of his own. If the best he can do is either jump on someone else’s idea bandwagon or tear it down over his own insecurity at being found out to be a fraud or an empty suit, perhaps he should do himself and all 49th Ward residents a favor and step down from office. As Angela Davis aptly put it back in 1967: ” What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. ” Mr. Moore is nothing more than a corrupt politician, wheras Mr. White has a sterling record of sincere community activism. Worse yet, Mr. Moore passes himself off as a progressive, whereas no one can think of any thing Mr. Moore has done that is progressive unless he piggybacked on someone else’s hard work and ideas. That is a stark contrast that all 49th Ward voters should keep in mind concerning Mr. White’s grass roots activism and outreach to the majority of 49th Ward residents who did not share in Mr. Moore’s & his developer/business cabal “quid pro qou” greed orgy during the crminal bubble era.
Speaking of the criminal bubble era, Mr. Moore was strangely silent during and after the mortgage, real estate, banking, insurance and Wall Street crime bubble. Mr. White was working for the right of our fellow citizens to have an affordable home during the same time period. Mr. Moore has been also strangely & curiously silent about the long, painful ongoing financial meltdown of the State of Illinois, County of Cook & the City of Chicago during his aldermanic tenure. One can only surmise that Mr. Moore benefitted from his silence. His lack of courage to fight against the cumulative financial Armageddon facing the greatest number of his constituents. Not only does Mr. Moore not have any ideas, he also suffers from what Tom Friedman of the NYT calls: “A failure of imagination.” Mr. Moore states that Mr. White has “failed miserably” and has a “flawed strategic plan.” Mr. Moore should take a sober look in the mirror and a thorough look around the entire 49th Ward and ask himself again: “Who has failed the many miserably, while beneftting the few greatly?” One would take a flawed strategic plan (though it’s not) over Mr. Moore’s lack of a plan anyday. As Margaret Mead said back in 1992: ” A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ” Mr. White seems to have surrounded himself with just such a group, while Mr. Moore has the usual political hacks, coatholders, corrupt developers and business people who would leave Mr. Moore and have nothing to do with him if he wasn’t an alderman.
Of course nothing happens in a vacumn, so some other facts to consider for those that are reading this article. The 1st TIF in Illinois was used to develop the Hyatt Hotel in Rosemont (the nexus of Chicago & Illinois politicians, the Outfit and the taxpayers piggybank aka “O’Hare Airport) . Illinois TIF law states that it should be used for blighted areas, unfortunately it doesn’t define blight in strict terms, though it would be hard to define Rosemont’s proximity to O’Hare as blighted. So the Question becomes: “Why not A RIF?” Indeed, the phrase in this article : ” increase in property values that results from development” is no longer relevant. The harsh reality is that property values will continue to go down and most likely will never recover to their criminal bubble levels. “Balanced Development” would result from a RIF where the greater number of citizens would benefit instead of the politically connected few that Mr. Moore has taken campaign money from for many years. Another fact that affects all of us is that the Number 1 problem facing the U.S. and our neighborhoods is ” Wealth Inequality”. Over the last 30 years the top 1% of wealth in this country has received 75% of the wage increases. The poor get poorer (if that’s possible) and the middle class continues to shrink greatly with rapidity. Will we revisit the French Revolution again, on this side of the Atlantic? Rogers Park is a microcosm of the larger problem: Mr. Moore and his greed cabal have gotten wealthy, while the 49th Ward residents have found the ward unaffordable, no meaningful jobs created during Mr. Moore’s aldemanic tenure along with the bankruptcy of Chicago coupled with plummeting property values, increasing taxes/fees for less City services. How could a citizen not vote for change?
Mr. Moore states the obvious when he says that it is “not free money”. However, it is the taxpayers money and it seems that a RIF would provide a much more widespread benefit to are fellow citizens, who one would hope that we all agree should be able to have an affordable home. Unfortunately, politics is the nexus of money, name recgnition and corrupt connections. That’s why all 49th Ward residents should vote for Mr. White who has new ideas and will clean up after the toxic mess that Mr. Moore has presided over in the 49th Ward. As Mother Teresa said in 1975: “There should be less talk…What do you then? Take a broom and clean someone’s house. That says enough.” Please give Mr. White the broom to do the sweeping with your vote.
I agree that changing the existing tax structure should be looked at, and not just at the city level. Burt the RIF proposal has been around a while, certainly before Daley decided to cut and run. Maybe there will be a better way in the next administration (hope springs eternal, and I believe in the tooth fairy too
. But to me, the important points in this particular controversy are these: 1) Moore voted in favor of many TIFs, including 3 in this ward and with very questionable benefits to the community, so it is completely hypocritical for him to now jump on the anti-TIF bandwagon; 2) It looks to me like this proposal addresses many of the concerns about TIFs– lack of transparency, use it or lose it, money specifically benefits and stays in Rogers Park,etc; 3) People in this community stepped forward and tried to solve a huge problem by proposing to use the tools that are currently available– bravo for them. Not only should Moore not have backed out of supporting further study, he should be thanking them for doing his job and thinking of solutions that might actually work and that have a chance of passing downtown. Moore’s excuse is always that his progressive ideas are stymied by Daley, but this time, apparently for political reasons, he is actively making a choice to continue with the same old tired do-nothing ways that got us into this mess in the first place.
This RIF is a STUPID, ill-conceived plan. There is no real protection for renters. If landlords fail to keep their properties affordable for 10 years as required for the grant, they simply have to pay the money back. This is an interest free loan for landlords! As soon as the market turns around these properties could be on the market and the tenants out on the street…again. Only the landlord and the agency that administers the funds will benefit. Not the tenants, and not the community. Wanna bet Brian’s agency plans to administer this giant fund?
The worst thing that could happen to the 49th Ward is Brian White. This guy has lied about his support on this thing and used the community’s nonprofits for his own personal goals. Shame on him.
Please, listen to Tom Tresser on this one. TIFs–and RIF’s– need to be ELIMINATED!
Unfortunately, your otherwise informative article about the proposed TIF in the 49th Ward did not include any background on the sorry story about the already existing $45 million TIF awarded by Joe Moore to Loyola University, part of which went to rehab the old Mundelein College building on their campus. For years residents held public meetings and invited Joe to have a transparent process for that TIF, to no avail. We also implored him to appoint people other than homeowners and business reps to the TIF board. He can’t have it both ways, oppose a TIF because it only benefits a few people after he opposed the community so stubbornly when we argued for openness before.