Bob Isner and Bob Chapman were pursuing TIF financing for part of the South Elm Redevelopment.
In a letter to ever deceitful Assistant City Manager Andy Scott, Bob Chapman (one of the Master Developer) wrote:
"4. The financial structure has changed dramatically with the advent of the Union
Square Campus, which we sought aggressively and about which we are most enthusiastic.
However by providing USC with free land and tax-exempt status, making TIF financing
of required parking decks impractical, if all goes well under the new scenario, we might
earn about $1.6 million over the 12 year term of the MDA, a $5.1 million reduction in our
potential incentive compensation. The attached charts provide details of the original and
revised forecasts."
I repeatedly opposed and expressed concerns about the negative, documented effects on existing neighborhoods associated with TIF financing...and yet...Bob Isner and Bob Chapman pursued what they knew would inevitably destroy one of the oldest neighborhood in our city by displacing its long time residents.
"...Because so many of the families displaced by urban renewal were black, James Baldwin
dubbed it “Negro removal"..."
All the MWBE programs in the world are not enough to balance what TIF financing destroys. There are plenty of other financial tools available to professional developers... I would prefer they go back to one of their original option of selling green cards.
PS: It is well documented that one parking deck ( or $3,000,000) was going to be provided by the city as an incentive in addition to some basic infrastructure...no TIF financing was ever necessary for a deck.
Greensboro has a http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/index.aspx?page=1749 long history of this sort of thing. "From the turn of the century to the late 1950s, the East Market Street Corridor flourished. It was the shopping and social center for many of Greensboro's African Americans, who owned businesses on the street and provided services to those shut out by segregation practices in other Greensboro neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteThis lively community began to wind down in the late 1950s and 1960s when, under the guise of "urban renewal," thousands of people and more than 80 businesses (many minority-owned) were displaced. Most of those businesses never reestablished.
Decline and disinvestment took a toll on the neighborhood -- and its residents."
An admission from the City of Greensboro itself and yet they continue to do the same.
Nancy Vaughan has a plan to solve homelessness, 21% poverty and the highest unemployment rate in North Carolina. It's called Push the poor out of town.