Coffee Break: Jordan Valley Park TIF beset with problems

The more we look at the city's tax increment financing plan for Jordan Valley Park, the stranger it gets.

Take the Blight Report on the properties in the TIF area. According to the report, everything from abandoned decrepit industrial plants to beautifully restored and renovated Victorian homes to vacant land is a blight on the city.

The report, which can be viewed in the city Planning Department, provides photos of the individual properties listed, along with a checklist of items indicating whether blight is present.

Among the properties listed as blighted, there are textbook examples of rundown, falling down, unkempt, unsafe structures. However, the vast majority of the properties seem to be occupied and in fairly good condition, even if they don't meet modern standards of setback or subdivision.

Also, while city records show that some property owners never signed for, and therefore did not receive, certified mail notice of the TIF Commission hearings held in September 2000, my research also shows that some of the property owners listed in the Blight Report, and subsequently notified of the TIF process, didn't own the property at that time.

For example, in the Blight Report, the owner of the Walgreens site at National and St. Louis is Blackstone Group-National LLC. A certified letter about the TIF was sent to Blackstone in September 2000, but Blackstone Group sold the property to WMA Investors LLC, a Michigan company, in December 1999.

Meanwhile, business owners who are inside the TIF and whose property has been declared blighted are concerned about eminent domain. They should be.

The fact is, because of the powers granted the city under TIF, no property within the redevelopment area is exempt from acquisition and demolition if such acquisition and demolition serves the "redevelopment objectives."

The redevelopment objectives of the redevelopment plan are:

To eliminate adverse conditions which are detrimental to public health, safety, morals or welfare in the redevelopment area and to eliminate and prevent recurrence thereof;

To enhance the tax base of the city and other taxing districts by developing the redevelopment area to a more beneficial use;

To encourage private investment in the surrounding area that will increase employment opportunities and discourage commerce, industry and manufacturing from moving their operations to another state;

To increase employment, housing and recreational opportunities in the city; and

To stimulate development which wouldn't occur without TIF assistance.

Since blight by definition is "a menace to public health, safety, morals or welfare," what protection do properties declared blighted have against acquisition and demolition over the 23 years (or more) of the TIF's life?

Several of these blighted properties are included in Redevelopment Project Area No. 9, whose language appears to give protection against acquisition. The TIF plan states that "no properties shall be acquired in conjunction with the implementation of Redevelopment Project No. 9." That's because there is no actual redevelopment "project" in Project Area 9, and therefore no reason to acquire property for it.

But while properties may not be acquired for Project 9, there is no reason properties in Project Area 9 can't be acquired to serve the "redevelopment objectives."

Project Area 9 consists of successful restaurant, retail and other businesses generally located along East Walnut Street and North and South National Avenue, and including Southwestern Bell to the west. Project 9's sole purpose is to generate revenue for the other eight redevelopment projects.

It is paradoxical that blighted properties, which by definition constitute a threat to the economic viability of an area, can simultaneously serve as an economic powerhouse for the redevelopment geared to eliminate the "threat" they represent.

Once again, we're not finished with this issue.