The only drawback -- having to hide everything from those annoying property owners who are footing the bill for all your fun. Buzz-kills, the lot of 'em. Why don't they just pay up and shut up?
Since TIFs are so much fun, it is any wonder that Ald. Shiller's asking for another to call her own?
A reader writes: "Noticed in today's Sun-Times classifieds the legal notice for the CDC hearing on the proposed new TIF district at Montrose & Clarendon (Columbus-Maryville). Hearing is May 11 at 1pm in Council chambers. More info about procedure; statement of objective is vanilla: 'to redevelop the ... site ...' "
MaryvilleTifLegalAd
Has anyone received any "Interested Party" correspondence from the Dept of Planning?
ReplyDeleteUmm...
ReplyDelete"Mercy Housing Lakefront Public Affairs Director Lisa Kuklinski said that housing organization acquired the 850 building because the former owners Dan Burke and Anthony Fusco, who is listed as the sole officer of the Chicago Community Development Corporation on the CCDC website, wanted to retire. Mercy has been working on acquiring the building for the past year."
I wonder how Burke and Fusco acquired the property. Oh wait, I know how they did it.
Loyola U Report: Saving our Homes
ONE, Voice of the People of Uptown, CCDC, and all the political players to pull the necessary strings at HUD.
Let me guess, no TIFs running through Carmen in Andersonville. What a hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is an incestuous little bunch of activists. One hand washing the other -- but it's ok because it has academic and non-profit holy-water sprinkled over it.
ReplyDeleteYou'll notice that the Loyola professor, Philip Nyden, who "researched" this housing article via interviews with ONE, Shiller, and CCDC, also wrote the article about the crime need for parking next to city colleges, just as the decision to have the Wilson TIF fund the Truman Parking garage was being made.
Hey, wait! Isn't this the same Loyola were Shiller was getting her masters degree Nyden's Urban Studies department?
I think this clip from "The Family Guy" sums up my attitude to this new TIF.
ReplyDeleteSubstitute "TIF" for prostate exam and watch me streak through the neighborhood.
"Drop your pants, turn around and lean forward and we'll give you a TIF."
"What the hell was that"?
"Mr Taxpayer, that's a TIF".
"Shut up, you had your finger in my ass".
I know this may offend one or two readers.
To which I can only say.............."Thppppt", it's better and less costly than the TIF".
Yeah "improve blight," not ameliorate it. Absolutely.
ReplyDeletePeople in this neighborhood don't oppose all affordable housing or attempts to upgrade Chicago's affordable housing supply. After all, HUD has been cracking down on the City of Chicago for poor maintenance of its affordable housing supply.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that the City can throw all the money it wants at building improvements but that will not change bad management practices that allow gangs to operate out of these buildings. When the city feathers the nests of gangbangers using TIF money, which could have been used to improve Uptown's long neglected CTA station, sewers, and public ways, why wouldn't citizens resent it?
The City of Chicago's CHA and Dept of Housing have pissed away money left and right for years but it gets when an activist alderman allows a single ward to be stripped of its public resources to fund citywide financial mismanagement. People in other wards would scream too if it happened in their blocks but they wouldn't have to tolerate the media indifference, outside housing activist racial and class warfare slurs, police throttling, mayoral lies-with-statistics, and aldermanic arrogance and money funneling that we endure.
The bottom line is that thia money is going to Voice of the People and CCDC. It was a big deal nationally and locally when they saved affordable housing by doing the first HUD conversions after 1960 HUD loan contracts started being bought out and expiring in Chicago. But, once they "saved" it as affordable, who was it affordable to? Many known gangbangers who have been involved in drug activity, shootings, and street fights.
HUD mandates that these converted project section 8 properties provide "decent, safe, and sanitary housing." History show that the building managers have not provided housing that meets these standards, but no one at HUD or the City of Chicago or Alderman Shiller's office gives a damn. They only care when it is time for HUD to create or renew or transfer the subsidized loan contract to a new owner. Then they scurry around like rats looking for TIF money to fix it up enough to get HUD to approve the contract for another 35 years. After that they ignore the property standards once again until its time for the next taxpayer bailout.
And, some managers --such as Voice of the People --- are much worse than others.
All interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard at the hearing, to file written
ReplyDeleteobjections with the City Clerk at the hearing and are invited to submit comments concerning the
subject matter thereof prior to the date of the hearing to the following addresses:
Chris Raguso, Acting Commissioner
Department of Community Development
City of Chicago1000
121 North LaSalle Street
Chicago, Illinois 60602
and
Miguel del Valle
City Clerk
City of Chicago
City Hall, Room 107
121 North LaSalle Street
Chicago, Illinois 60602
bump
ReplyDelete