Whereas community diversity and sustainability depends upon preserving a diverse
supply of housing, including quality and affordable rental housing; and,
Whereas affordable rental housing in the 49th'Ward has been sorely depleted by condo
conversions; and,
Whereas high operating costs and inefficiencies of the remaining rental housing stock
threaten the loss of substantial numbers of additional rental units in the next 20 years;
and,
Whereas Tax Increment Financing (TIF) statutes permit the use of such funds for the
purposes of affordable housing conservation, rehabilitation, and improvement efforts;
and,
Whereas a coalition of organizations, landlords, and more than 300 concerned residents,
along with myself, desire to create a ward-wide Rental Preservation TIF in the 49'n Ward;
and,
Whereas proponents of the Rental Preservation TIF have conducted broad community
outreach to create a model TIF, which protects the public interest and achieves significant
community benefits; and,
Whereas n number of landlords, including especially independent landlords and small
property owners in the 49'n ward, have expressed interest in agreeing to maintain a
percentage of their apartments as affordable to persons earning low incomes, in exchange
for receiving grants from the proposed Rental Preservation TIF; and,
Whereas the proposed Rental Preservation TIF will provide a model for transparency,
accountability, and community-based decision making and oversight; and,
'
Whereas the proposed Rental Preservation TIF, will utilize an estimated2.75% of total
property taxes levied; and,
Whereas the proposed Rental Preservation TIF will reinvest 100% of receipts into
quality rental housing affordable to community residents; and
Whereas prior to establishing a new Rental Preservation TIF, a TIF eligibility study and
an open community review process must be completed; now therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Department of Community Development is to be
commended for their commitment to work with Alderman Joe Moore, Lakeside CDC,
Northside P.O.V/.E.R., and concerned residents and organizations in the 49th Ward.
Signed,
Joe Moore
21 comments:
ANTI-GENTRIFICATION
right?
I would not call condos at $40K unaffordable. And we have plenty on the market.
How about a reverse TIF that makes rental housing more expensive? Maybe keep some of the riff-raff out...
TIFs do lead to higher rent as a long-term effect--a big reason why so many fair housing organizations are so vehemently opposed to them (another reason being that they siphon tax dollars that would go into public works into daley's corporate gift fund)... but of course, everyone reading this blog has probably heard this story and chosen to ignore it.
at what point do the comments and posts on rogers park gentrifier blogs cross from "improving the community" (what community, specifically?) into outright racism?
How about Joe moving NOH? 2 recent incidents of gunfire in a 15 hour period in front of the same 'affordable' housing building. Push more affordable housing down our throats.
Joe does nothing. No response from our elected official. No response from the police.
Bring more affordable housing to the ward Joe. Don't listen to the people that live here now. We keep telling you enough is enough. clean this mess up before someone gets killed. It is bound to happen.
Ah, the phony racism/gentrification argument. Please. RP lacks the amenities to attract those that gentrify. Damn those greedy landlords and developers just waiting to put $500k condos on Juneway Terrace, eh Erik?. Anyway, I'll lay off the residents of "affordable" housing when they lay off the gunfire, loitering, and leaving pit bull poop wherever they like.
Obviously, in the past 29 years he has been in office, Ald. Joe Moore can be considered a 'failure'.
Last year, I had someone in mind, whom now I would not recommend if my life depended upon it.
Somehow, we DO have to back someone who has the guts and gall (and the bucks!)to run against Ald. Joe (AKA the AlderJoker).
After over three years of residency here in
Rogers Park, I am very disappointed with all I have learned about Ald. Joseph Arthur Moore, and I think he is a scammer and a sham.
Who of you out there think you could replace him? (Sit down, Bill Morton!). Who has the balls to fight the Chicago Machine--snd the $$$ to fight the machine? Anyone? Bueller?
Where is the outrage at a scheme that will siphon off tax dollars from fire, police, infrastructure improvements, schools, etc. so that Brian can reallocate as he sees fit to private property owners -- that will improve the value of their property at the expense of fire, police, infrastructure, etc.? All hail to our new overlord, Brian.
I don't resent paying property taxes for schools, parks and such but this is putting my property taxes directly into someone else's pocket.
Sorry, "Robbin Hood" Moore. I was starting to like you for standing up to Mayor Daley but you just lost my vote with this scheme.
Making rental housing more expensive with MY tax money (property taxes paid through rent) will NOT keep the "riff raff" out. After all, they get Section 8 vouchers that pay 75% of their rent.
Section 8 has been a big factor in driving up rents across the board and making it difficult for middle income people to accumulate significant savings.
It's difficult to believe that anyone is isn't in Bill Gate's income bracket could advocate driving up the cost of living in an contracting economy with falling incomes.
If you want a higher cost of living, don't sweat, it's coming, mostly in the form of higher fuel prices. Enjoy.
We are at last getting significant price breaks on housing available to buy and that is good. Perhaps middle income ($35K-$65K) earners will be able to buy a decent place that they can pay off in less than 20 years and have a chunk of money to save every payday, instead of being up to their eyeballs in mortgage payments.
Maybe we can break the addiction to debt in this country, and become people who save half their salaries. That makes individuals and families, and the communities they live in, much more resilient in the face of adversity, and it also makes the economy stronger by enabling people to bounce back and fuels investment in new industries.
In the meantime, the cost of living in this country is TOO DAMN HIGH and we need for absolutely everything to become much cheaper,inasmuch as we have to compete for jobs with people across the water who work for one-tenth the money we do.
WHEREAS I intend to keep as many skanks, morons, idiots, whiners, bums, homeless, knuckle-heads, criminals, felons, gangmembers, loiterers, do-gooders, dog owners, unemployed, panhandlers, democrats, losers, state-dependents, non-producers, trouble makers, thieves, drug dealers and their kind living in this ward to vote for me, you can all kiss my big fat white ass while I confiscate your private sector money to subsidize housing for them.
Pretty funny how The North Coast thinks that people taking a pounding on their property value is a good thing but pity the poor renter at the mercy of greedy landlords and unfair market forces. If things are so expensive for The North Coast then maybe he/she should take advantage of a federal program that pays 75% of one's rent...
"Where is the outrage at a scheme that will siphon off tax dollars from fire, police, infrastructure improvements, schools, etc. ... All hail to our new overlord, Brian."
hey, don't jump on Brian - he is only doing what any executive director of a special interest group should do:
Ubi est mea?
Brian is a true Chicagoan!
Whenever you hear someone say:
"I have a cause and I want to use TIF to fix it"
...what they are really saying is:
"I have a cause that is so important to me that I think it should NOT be weighed against other causes of other people like school teachers, police, fire, etc.; and even though it is a local problem it is so important that I think taxpayers from throughout Cook County should have their taxes raised to pay for it; and I want millions of dollars locked in dedicated to me and my cause for decades and I don't want to discuss it and I don't want it rescinded, ever, no matter how conditions change."
TIF has become a synomym for free money, off-budget money, fast-track approval money.
Hey, billyjoe's brain, the prices of 2005-2007 were never for real. They were based on the ability to get a loan no matter who you were for any amount of money.
YES, YES I am glad to see prices fall. I'm a prospective buyer, you see. Why in the hell should I have to pay for other people's stupidity? No one ever paid for mine, I can tell you. I made four low-ball offers on overpriced properties during the Greed Stampede and was turned down and now I'm glad, because I'm seeing substantially similar properties priced at HALF what they were in the Great Rampage.
Now I can buy a place for less than 2X my income and get it paid off in 5 years, with ample room in my paycheck to put money away. If my offer on one place around here had been accepted, on the other hand, I'd be looking at 30 years of debt slavery at a monthly payment 80% more than the rent I'm paying for a comparable.
I'm sorry if your house value is dropping, but I didn't hold a gun to anyone's head to make him or her buy, nor did I promote the ridiculous monetary policies that made the Great Housing Rampage possible.
But I AM paying through the nose to help the po' victimized borrowers stay in houses they should have know goddam well they couldn't afford. I knew I couldn't afford a loan for 4, 5, 6, or more X my income- what was THEIR problem?
I'd like to see every damned socialized housing program canceled and the money returned to the taxpayers. Section 8, low-income housing, scaled "affordable", the interest rate deduction for mortgage interest, the housing tax credit, HOPE NOW, HAMP. Fade the FHA while we're at it- wait till you see the bailout coming off the bad loans written by the FHA in the past two years, to prop up the overinflated housing prices by means of socialistic "gimmes". Then sunset the FHA, FNMA, GNMA, and the Dept of Housing and Urban Development.
Sickening to pay $447K to build "affordable" units for 150 very privileged "poor" folks via the Wilson Yards TIF, and sickening to assist middle class greed mongers to stay in houses they had no business buying to begin with.
Excuse me, Billy joe's Brain, but I'm a salary earner and taxpayer, NOT a welfare recipient, and it is far beneath me to accept housing subsidies.
I pay my way. I have never in my life received a subsidy, not even unemployment, and neither has anyone in my family.
So I very much resent supporting housing prices for homeowners through my taxes. When I make a bad investment, I lose, that's all- I don't expect the taxpayers to make good my stock market losses or gambling debts.
The truth is that the homeowners would have been much better off if prices had never run up so much- and the ONLY reason that prices went so high is because of government interference in the housing market by means of various "affordability" programs aimed at making home ownership (debtorship) "affordable" and government guarantees for bad lending. If FNMA, GNMA, and FHA weren't there to buy and guarantee bad loans, believe me, housing would have stayed at 2000 prices and we would not have millions of bagged homeowners.
Your house is not supposed to be a money-making vehicle. It is a consumer item, a place to live. And you are not supposed to expect the government to prop up your bad investments.
The careless home borrowers with their oversized loans and HELOC abuse have endangered MY financial security as well as their own- why should I pay taxes to prop them up?
In a truly free market, the credit bubble would never have grown to the size it did or sucked in so many people. The so called "free" market was goosed with government-backed lending by banks who knew they'd always get bailed out.
So please don't suggest to me that I become a welfare recipient. I pay my own way, and all I ask is that my taxes not be used to price houses out of my range. Let the free market work- let the foreclosures happen and let the prices fall. Fine with me, I'm about to buy. There are some great deals out there, at last.
I am also against the Section 8 and TIF - look what it does to the neighborhoods! Why should someone who has way too many kids to support or someone who doesn't work really hard get to live next door to the person who is paying full price????
It is almost comical to watch the gentrifier echo chamber on these rich people blogs. do you realize there was a neighborhood here before you moved in? that the scum, bums, whores, welfare queens, etc are people? If you all move in an housing goes up, where do you expect them to go? If you move in and the cost of living goes up, how do you expect people to make ends meet? whatever. The fact is that attitudes like this come from an unfortunate new population of chicago that wants to push people out of their homes and pretend that such unfortunate situations only exist because the state is "subsidizing" or encouraging such unhealthy lifestyles. It is a nice, internally-coherent delusion.
"now erik, we are members of the community too... we go to caps meetings and i helped out at the soup kitchen once!" Whatever.
your lack of grasp of the issues in RP or the greater city is like a silly joke to me.
Thank the lord Jesus that we still have good and kind souls such as Erik. It is the moral responsibility of the rich to take care of the poor and unfortunate among us. I just happen to fall into the latter category and am thankful that I get the aid and housing I need and do not have to go out and find a job. I am disabled with a permanently swollen ankle and a significant weight problem. The millionaires who can afford to live in beautiful condos and houses have a duty to take care of me. My section 8 housing is quite comfortable for me and my five dogs. With the help of my Link card I do not go hungry. If a TIF can be used to make my apartment more comfortable I am all for it. Thank God for Joe Moore and the other progressive politicians who live up to their moral responsibilities and care for those of us who cannot help ourselves.
Erik:
are you out of your freekin' mind? I come from a family that leans so far left, they voted multiple times for Eugene Debs for president (Look it up, smart guy).
you're right. there was a neighborhood here before now. And my dad lived in it. And so did my grandparents. so don't give me any crap about how it's these nameless, faceless, white yuppie hoards who just moved here who are the frustrated ones.
I'm well aware of the socio-economic situation in large cities like Chicago, and how how difficult it is to climb out of poverty in 2010. but being poor is not the issue here. neither is the color of one's skin. it's called behaving like a decent human being.
being poor does not give you a license to stand in front of my home to sell crack, shoot randomly into crowds, gather at all hours of the day and night shouting obscenities, tossing trash everywhere in the neighborhood, mug people, etc. that's called bullshit. and i don't care if you're white, black or green. if you do that kind of stuff, i want your ass out of my neighborhood.
next, if you knew anything about public housing, you'd know it was intended as "transitional" housing. never intended to be generational. even if the schools are crap, which they are, keep going. and then go to the library after school and read about stuff that you're interested that they're not teaching you in school. you'll pull yourself up, and you'll pull yourself out. If your parents aren't drilling that in your head, then you need new parents. this 'delusion' you speak of is actually reality. helping people out is great. it's necessary. and i believe that government has a real role to play in that help. but you don't help people by making them dependent. that's what's happened.
bottom line is this. if you feel so strongly for the shitbirds that are blighting the neighborhood so much, gimme your address. I'll be happy to have a conversation with them, and tell them there's a person that's very understanding of their plight and that you should go over to his house right now.
Dear Erik,
If we were rich we wouldn't be living in Rogers Park. Shitbirds, indeed...
Sincerely,
BillyJoe'sBrain
BJ's Brain,
Shows how much you really know about Rogers Park.
This is the only neighborhood in the city where the wealthy and the poor exist in roughly equal numbers.
Or, maybe you already knew that, but let your emotions get the best of you.
The TIF idea is not a good idea. So, why the push?
It's a way to put money into insolvent, incomplete housing projects here, the majority of which should never have been started in the first place, period.
One and two bedroom units with no parking are STARTER units, or TRANSIENT RENTAL units. Three, four, and five bedroom units with parking space are for people looking to put down roots. Four and five bedroom units with parking are the foundation of stable middle class communities across the country.
The market was hot for junk to flip, and that's largely what we got - junk to flip. Screw the parking. Junk and saturated demography doesn't get financing by responsible lenders these days.
This is why Joe Moore has put a TIF on the table. He's stuck with junk he approved, and he's got economically disadvantaged folks on one side, distressed developers on the other, and government affordable housing subsidies in the wings. This is a taxpayer bailout of lousy urban planning.
It also caters to the largest number of active voters in Rogers Park. The wealthy tend to vote no matter what, and the poor in Rogers Park are empowered by strong local activism. Together, they keep the Alderman in office. This is a shrewd political move.
In my view, a TIF is a mistake. The existing projects should be allowed to react to the market. There's plenty of money in the pipeline, and it's cheap money. If the projects are good ones, private money can be matched to them. It will just take patience and persistence.
If the projects can't get private funding, they need to fold.
I've made enough of my own mistakes to pay for. No one's bailing me out.
I don't want my taxes paying for Moore's lack of vision, and to subsidize developers and banks who are stuck with projects that amounted to a gold rush married to a roll of the dice.
It's not my problem, and the proposed TIF is an attempt to make it my problem - and yours.
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