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1. ChrisHajer
   Member

   CuriousResident said here:
   http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=174&page=4&replies=103#post-2931
   

   All anyone wants is cleaned up/face lifted buildings and some ma and pop services (my guess is that 50+% could be food focused). Bring on the pizza joint, a sandwich shop, and a gourmet food market with meals to go...and we could be done! But NOooo, we are going to have cheap faceade mondo-condos and a corner fakery...ugh.

   Corbi, I will eat at your pizzeria. Don, I will shop at your deli. And I will buy meals to go at the new gourmet food market.

   Chris

   Posted Tuesday Feb 20, 2007 18:50 #

2. spatny
   Member

   You can see where this is going. The TIF is going to become the answer to everything. We'll cover the shortfall, fix the infrastructure, induce private development, even give you an amphitheatre in the park. Sure we may have a little traffic problem with all those hordes of people who are going to drive here from Hinsdale or Bannockburn or Barrington to go to Grumpy's and the Chew Chew and all the other wonderful places on our new "Restaurant Row" or to shop at Abercrombies, but we can put up traffic lights for less than $400K and fix that. NASA engineers couldn't fix that corner, and we sure don't need them to try. What we need to do is enforce the building maint. and keep rents at a rate where people can make a living with less traffic, not the reverse. The idea that some kind of shopping and dining destination can be created here that will draw people who have myriad other choices and no connection whatsoever to Riverside is ludicrous. This isn't Lake Forest. People better wake up and realize they may get what they wish for, and then it will be too late. The Village Board should concentrate on correcting the flaws in the Zoning Code and enforcing that code, not doing deals for oversize junk like the VC. I left at half time tonight before the panel could pontificate on the virtues of the TIF because I felt I'd learn more watching Frontline and walking my dog . I bet I was right.

   Posted Tuesday Feb 20, 2007 22:38 #

3. Elisa
   Member

   I know my thoughts are not original, but as I think and think I am starting to pull some things together. CuriousResident's sentiments are exactly what I have been hearing for years whenever there is an informal discussion about the downtown (when I go to parties and such) - now, this is long before the TOD and TIF. It really does seems as if most people want what is there structurally to stay there, and yes, get a face lift - and for there to be less mortgage companies and banks and more food and services. The deli and pizza joint and upscale grocery are all supurb ideas (hopefully I'd assume that Riverside Foods would be the upscale grocery and not replaced by someone else.)

   We (the town) have also decided that we don't want a bike path or anything like that. I do wonder who we are trying to keep out, though, when now we want to encourage tourism. (By the way, I would support both ideas - tourism and bike paths - ...it's just that it seemed clear that "we" (as a Village) don't want a bike path or anything like that.)

   We do want money, however. The Village has been stressing the need for money to better serve its residents (police, fire, rec department, mowing and snow removal, etc.) So I'm OK with the Village wanting more money.

   So what do we want? We want, as has been stated here by many before me, shops and stores that are more of the mom and pop type - we don't want the big Crate & Barrel store on the corner (not that I don't love Crate & Barrel) and they wouldn't be likely to come anyway. We also want the money so that the Village can run the Village. Sprucing up the CBD wouldn't make money for the Village. Even having existing buildings that have apartments above (like the apts above Riverside Plumbing) don't generate a lot of $$$. What does generate $$$ is property taxes. If there is a lot of condo development in the downtown, in a TIF district, then the Village stands to gain a lot more money than if the existing buildings had a simple face lift. I poked around in the County Assessor's website and the difference in assessed value from each condo on Longcommon (those nice ones - and there are 18 of them) adds up much more quickly than the assessed value of the building which houses Riverside Plumbing. To the best of my figuring, it takes only 3 of those condos to equal the assessed value of the Riv. Plumbing building. And when you consider who we're "keeping out", condos limit the rental makeup of our town. (I personally don't want to keep anyone out, all are welcome who are nice and kind and friendly as far as I'm concerned. I'd love a bike path that connects with other ones, I could care less if someone rented an apartment to live in this town instead of buying. I refer to the perceived fear of other people coming into our town. And I don't speak about people who are here - this is something I have noticed for years.) I also think that an apartment building generates less property tax revenue than separate condo units, but really I don't know.

   Also, not to bring up numbers that have been hashed about already, but how much of our property taxes (percentage-wise) go to the schools? Not real numbers, but percentages. If there were lots of condos under the TIF, that percentage - which would add up quickly if there were lots and lots of units - is what the schools are missing out on. I think this is more about the property taxes of condos, and less about the actual businesses that might go in. (Not that the businesses that will go in are insignificant or unwelcome - I just don't know if they will bring in the same kind of money.)

   So, what do we want? I think we all truly want the best for Riverside. My worry is that we will sell the soul of our town to the devil so that we can take care of our budget woes. I might be wrong about some of my conclusions (like comparing the value in taxes of an apartment building to condo units) - in fact it's quite likely that I am, and if I am, I am certain someone will correct me. Remember, I am just sitting around in my living room thinking!

   Posted Tuesday Feb 20, 2007 23:14 #

4. Catherine
   Member

   "I know my thoughts are not original, but as I think and think I am starting to pull some things together. CuriousResident's sentiments are exactly what I have been hearing for years whenever there is an informal discussion about the downtown (when I go to parties and such) - now, this is long before the TOD and TIF. It really does seems as if most people want what is there structurally to stay there, and yes, get a face lift - and for there to be less mortgage companies and banks and more food and services. The deli and pizza joint and upscale grocery are all supurb ideas (hopefully I'd assume that Riverside Foods would be the upscale grocery and not replaced by someone else.)"

   Ditto and amen. I agree this is what I have always heard as well. I think the trustees, in the scope of their responsibility, have added the development to - as you say - come up with needed property tax revenues because of the property tax cap. As trustee Smith observed, all condos would generate more property tax than retail and condos mixed. Because of the former desire, the compromise. We DO have plenty of condo conversions and construction going on already.

   My problem with this reasoning is that I do not see - as I have observed in a few other threads - that any of the first 10million in projected revenue has been dedicated to village operations or to improvements in standing infrastructure (as we have been told is needed.) I see that infrastructure spending that is earmarked is for infrastructure required for the new construction and for other matters. And nothing for operations like police, trees, etc.

   Can anyone tell me when and what money is going into the village operating budget from these revenues? Really, I want to know.

   Spatny, you will recall that the question was asked on Frontline with regard to the republic: "Do we destroy the village to save the village?"

   Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 11:55 #

5. spatny
   Member

   Catherine - that Frontline was like watching a parade of crooks - from Rummy and Cheney back when they had hair and worked for Tricky to Porter Goss, who is lucky he didn't get prosecuted on the way out. "What goes around comes around."

   This TIF deal has become like one of those "shot the ducks" games in the old carnivals. You know what's coming, what it will sound like and who will be spouting it, and when it shows up you let it have it, and down it goes. But wait, there's another one, almost identical. And another. And another...

   This whole thing breaks down to diametrically opposed views. The Village Elders and their cohorts think "if you build it they will come." But they can't prove that to you. They think people will come in and take large risks in installing upgrades and equipment for the pizza place, the deli, the Thai joint - whatever, and that then not only will hordes come here from the surrounding area (which all has lower demographics) but that the locals are dying to patronize them. The only business that seems to make it here is real estate, turning over the residential properties, and so we are going to get a new realtor in town - just what we need. I believe a good, reasonable pizza and Italian restaurant could make a living here - IF it was really good and if the rent and overhead was right. Same with a REALLY GOOD Deli. I don't know about the rest of the ideas I've heard. Maybe if they build the Olmsted Commons and put in about five Dollar Stores and a couple of resale shops they'll suck in some shoppers, but the rest - no way. Just this week they say they can't hire the Museum Director for $24K until the cops get their impound fee. Then they can hit the guys they arrest with that to fund the Museum. That doesn't jive well with the millions they have on the wish list for "A Museum" does it. What should we do, predicate the care of the Museum on revenue from DUIs? This gets more bizarre all the time. One guy wants to build a tunnel under the tracks "to Euro specs" for cars - not trucks, and another wants to cut 18 parking spaces out of Centennial Park, and another wants to build Disneyland on the BNSF for adults, and on and on it goes. Everyone loves something - so let's do it. Poor Riverside. Who will save her from the Philistines?"

   Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 14:02 #

6. corbi328
   Member

   Mr. Spatny,

   Thanks for sharing more of your defeatist attitude with us once again. I can't tell you how inspiring I find your rambling diatribes about what we can't do in Riverside. After listening to you last night, I can't understand why we just don't all throw up our hands and say "F@#K It"! Thank goodness there are enough reasonable people in town who think progress can and will be achieved.

   Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 14:18 #

7. TJS
   Member

   And the majority of reasonable people in Riverside feel progress will be achieved without a TIF.

   Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 14:59 #

8. Catherine
   Member

   And once again an EDC pro-TIFfer chimes in with more propaganda and no information. WHY is it that I cannot get an explanation of how TIF revenues would make it into the operating budget, and how the village as it presently stands benefits from the $10M earmarked so far? Is that a hard, unanswerable question? I guess the answer is, it won't. We need money for the cops and the trees, for starters.

   Progress. A dangerous concept in the hand of the TIF philistines, witness the "Olmsted Business Common" (an appellation that would pass over many a dead body, I trust.)

   Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 15:13 #

9. CuriousResident
   Member

   In reading this, I can't help but wonder how we *really* got here.

   The romantic explanation is "Just look at our downtown deteriorating...we have to do something".

   The greedy explanation is "we need a CBD that allows for density...ergo property taxes to fund everything". Not to mention all the real estate and business lease transactions. And all those condos will need tradesmen to maintain them....OH THE INERTIA OF CAPITALISM!

   The sad explanation is "it is a bandaid on a bandaid in the interest of bandaid makers".

   Where is the simplistic root cause analysis? Why have businesses left Riverside? And why do new ones not come in? Is it really that we need the density of condos in a CBD to make any business success feasible?!?

   And I'm with Catherine on the opinion that the density solution is what kicks off the need for a major change to the Village infrastructure. Yes, the infrastructure is old...and yes it would be nice if it were nice and new...but we don't need 10 million in keeping it functional...unless we load up the CBD with boatloads of people.

   If we go back to "what we really want", is there not another way (besides density)?!
   If there is, I would hope that we would be able to avoid TIF and all it's baggage.

   My curiosity has me wondering how many types of businesses have been interviewed/researched to understand their motivations/reluctance to setup shop here.

   And has the EDC developed any other options to stimulate new business (besides density and TIF)?

   Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 15:13 #

10. corbi328
    Member

    TJS,

    I am glad you feel qualified to speak on behalf on the majority since from what I can tell the majority of town residents don't seem to care enough about this issue to participate and offer their opinion. It's pretty sad to see how limited the level of participation has been in these workshops. If I were a Trustee, I could only conclude from all of this that most people in town don't want to take the time to form an opinion on this issue and that they have elected their Trustees to make a decision on their behalf. I am confident they will make the right one.

    Posted Wednesday Feb 21, 2007 15:18 #

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