TIFs Become a 49th Ward Campaign Issue

By Kevin Robinson in News on Jan 21, 2011 8:20PM

In the on-going saga of Chicago’s best kept secret - a shadow budget kept on a second set of books - the Chicago News Cooperative’s Mick Dumke takes a look at how Tax Increment Financing, once a behind-the-scenes function of the city’s development funds, has begun to appear front and center in both city wards and in the mayor’s race.

A proposal in the 49th Ward to create a TIF for affordable rental housing is becoming an issue in the aldermanic race. Brian White, an affordable housing advocate and candidate for alderman, supports the TIF. “We could do something that fundamentally changes how we protect housing in Rogers Park,” White told Dumke, noting that recent Census data shows the neighborhood has lost about one-fifth of its black and Hispanic residents, presumably to a lack of affordable housing the neighborhood. Incumbent Alderman Joe Moore disagrees that a TIF for residential housing in the neighborhood is the right solution, or that’s it a viable one. Citing a pre-eligibility study conducted by consultants hired by White and A Just Harvest, Moore said in an email to constituents “After careful deliberation and review of the study, I have decided to OPPOSE the RIF/TIF proposal.”

As for mayoral candidates, Rahm Emanuel has said that he would include TIF finances in the regular budget, which the city council would have to approve, and has advocated using TIF money to pay for more police in the city. Gery Chico says that he’d like more TIF subsidies for small businesses, while Migue del Valle has called for restructuring the TIF program to make sure that funding is going to address blight, the program’s original intent. And Carol Moseley Braun has called for a moratorium on TIFs, saying that the money should be used to shore up the city’s ailing budget.