For once, Councilman Craig Hosmer was pleased to see a pair of blight bills.
“Two blight bills I can support,” Hosmer said, with a question in his voice, at last night’s Springfield City Council meeting in response to bills introduced by Planning and Development Director Mary Lilly Smith.
The councilman has been a
vocal critic of tax abatements for developers in blighted areas since joining council in 2013. The blight designation, which requires conditions such as obsolete platting and unsafe or unsanitary structures, has been around since the 1960s, but it gained traction with developers in recent years largely focused on student-housing projects.
Hosmer, who approaches abatements conservatively, has witnessed about a dozen projects approved for tax breaks on improvements during his time on council. He’s voted to approve one: a
Hotel Vandivort request he said could produce long-term jobs.
In January, the issue appeared to come to a head when officials for three center-city projects simultaneously sought abatements on new improvements in blighted districts. Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky inquired as to how the city could “unblight” properties that had been remediated, fearing tax breaks could come in the future to developers who want to build in areas where the rundown conditions are no longer present.
Last night, Smith followed through on a commitment made two months ago to present a bill by the end of March that could eliminate the blight designation in areas where remediation had occurred.
The two presented bills would remove designations around University Plaza Hotel and Convention Center and immediately surrounding Missouri State University.
Smith said the University Plaza redevelopment area was established in 1983 and a second tract was added in 1989.
“It includes the former Sears department store and the old University Inn motel. If you’re like me, I can barely remember when there used to be the old University Inn motel there,” Smith said at the meeting.
The Sears location became the Springfield Exposition Center, and the motel was transformed into the University Plaza Convention Center, she said, adding all abatements ended in the area in 2013.
The MSU blighted district – bordered by Cherry and Grand streets to the north and south and Holland and National avenues to the west and east – dates back to 1965, Smith said.
A swath of properties west of Holland that also had been a part of that district would remain blighted under the proposal.
No members of the public spoke to either bill during the public hearings. They’re slated to receive a second reading and vote at the April 13 council meeting.[[In-content Ad]]
