TIF Money Follies

The City Council approved a plan Tuesday by Mayor Daley to put $25 million in TIF money toward making public schools handicapped-accessible. "Helping the handicapped ... is great. [But] every time I turn around, I see more TIF dollars being used for education. . . . It's going to leave these TIFs dry. When we have proposals in our communities, we're going to have a hard time finding dollars," Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) told the Sun Times.

Daley has been arguing that schools need more money, including threatening an increase in property taxes if the state doesn't come through with $180 million for education programs. Two years ago Mayor Daley diverted $600 million from neighborhood TIFs to build nine new high schools and 15 new elementary schools.

The Daley administration has also agreed to put $52 million in TIF money into the Wilson Yard project in Uptown. That's an increase of 25 percent, in spite of a city guideline that TIF money not account for more than 20 percent of the cost of a project. “The overall financial setup has shifted, hopefully for the last time,” said Peter Holsten, president of Chicago-based Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation. The Wilson Yard project, which will construct a mixed-use development at Broadway and Montrose, is targeted to develop a site that includes a former CTA railyard and bus depot.

If you aren't familiar with TIFs, The Reader's Ben Joravsky has a great series on how they work, and how they impact the city.

Image via swanksalot