Billy Jones questions the process for the RIDICULOUS downtown hotel giveaway... No study, no shame, no problem, no consequences... for now!
The deal was brilliantly engineered...
Kaplan and Ko. will simply be the landlords and will lease their buildings to the hotel developers... They will in exchange be the recipients of the city council awarded tax rebate, which will absorb the immediate projected increase in property taxes.
In summary, the developer will build the hotel, Windham will operate it and Kaplan and Ko will receive a renovated building, lease payments and tax rebates.
Thank God for rich ex wife, smart partners and "flexible" economic development policies.
"The deal was brilliantly engineered... " Well except for the fact that it was entirely illegal.
ReplyDeleteFrom Rob Bencini, Greensboro News & Record:
"In March of 2009, the chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners proposed that the county give 100 percent tax rebates to anyone who built any commercial real estate improvements — new, expanded or upfit. The intent was to invigorate the local economy through investment in real estate development by removing the local property taxes on those structural improvements for the first three years. It was such a sweet gesture for developers and builders — and oh-so-wrong on so many levels."
He adds:
"Secondly, the incentive went to the builder and developer — not any lessee who might rent any property... No legal counsel from any level of government would green-light the proposal. The concept died a quiet death."
Someone is going down.
No matter what Mujeeb calls it, this is a tax rebate... Brownfields tax rebates are legal though
ReplyDeleteExactly!
ReplyDeleteMaybe our civic leadership should then develop and implement a tax rebate program FOR ALL residents and citizens similar to the Brownfields program instead of awarding incentives only to their friends...
ReplyDeleteMujeeb was seen on TV smiling while advising council not to call it a tax rebate while his body language inferred that he believed it was...again the simple nuance in appellation may make it legal but is it Ethical???
I vote for a more ethical municipal government.