Blight Me, Baby!

To create a TIF, the City must prove that the proposed TIF area is “blighted.”  We can’t help but notice that what the Chicago Development Commission (CDC) ruled was “blight” last week became a design feature this week.  For example:

• Last week, a driveway off Lake Shore Drive with City salt truck access during winter nights endangered Clarendon Park children playing soccer and baseball during summer days, thus causing blight.
  
  
  
  This week, developers unveiled their Agatite service drive for all trucks and semi-tractor trailers serving the proposed 60,000 foot grocery store, the 8-story commercial box, and 1050 dwelling units.  It lies over the grass parkways on Agatite and opens onto Clarendon, directly across from two children’s playlots and the Park District basketball court.  That’s not blight; that’s their new traffic safety feature.

• Last week, the Maryville Campus Planned Development district AND areas pulled from the Wilson Yard planned TIF district AND Park District property district that lays in the 2008 Lincoln Park Framework Plan lacked community planning, thus showing “blight.”
  
  This week, developers showcased Don Hohenadel, the Chicago Dept of Planning’s Uptown Area Manager, who directed Uptown community planning for the past 10-20 years.  If there’s “lack of planning blight,” what is he?  An overpaid ghost payroller?  And … if those aren’t existing Planned Developments, what are they?  Oxymorons?

• Last week, CDC ruled that the pedestrian pedway and air rights over Clarendon Avenue were worthless blight.
  
  This week, the pedestrian pedway and air rights over Clarendon Avenue are design features on the proposed Lakeview Station artist renderings. That’s not blight; that’s a pedestrian shortcut / safety feature.

• Last week, CDC ruled that City-mandated board-up and safety fencing surrounding the over-six-months-vacant Maryville medical center was blight.
  
  This week, Mayor Daley praised his own vacant building safety program, whereby compliant Maryville building owners shouldered their increased maintenance “responsibilities under the law and their duty as corporate citizens by boarding up properties.” That’s not blight, that’s proper building management and a safety feature.

So what is “blight”? Apparently it's whatever the City needs it to be to qualify a proposed TIF.