One month ago I posted this:
To TIF or not to TIF???
The Village Board of Trustees, the Village President, and the Village Manager all want to establish a TIF district in Riverside. They have the power to do so, despite the fact that a sizable, and perhaps a majority of the residents, don't want it. If they go ahead and do it, without ever presenting a concrete plan for what they hope to accomplish with the funds they will grab and sequester, what recourse do we have? Sadly, practically none. With a simple majority vote of the Board they can put in motion a mechanism that will allow this Board and future Boards to spend somewhere between $20 and $35 million dollars over the next 23 to 35 years on what has so far only been defined as a rather ephemeral effort to bring retail businesses to downtown Riverside.
We don't know exactly how they intend to spend these funds because there has been no concrete plan presented. We can only surmise what this Board, and future Boards, will do with the funds that they extract and sequester for this purpose. Our only clue as to what they might do lies in what they have already done, such as overriding the zoning code they themselves established in order to saddle us with that ugly, oversized monstrosity that is now not yet half way to its ultimate height at the former Henninger's site.
Who besides the developers will benefit from the more than $6 million dollars in additional sales revenues that variance made possible?
When this Board goes so far as to label homes and property on Pine Street as the site for future “purchase— for the construction of a multilevel parking structure, when letters are sent to other property owners in the proposed TIF district informing them that their properties are “blighted— or that they are under utilizing their property, when “special— single-agenda item meetings are held to discuss giving a specific developer “inducements" for projects already agreed upon, when undefined buildings and parking lots are drawn into areas that we believe should remain vacant, what are we left to think? Only the obvious - that this TIF money will be used to induce developers to pack downtown with more and more condominiums that may or may not have successful retail businesses located on their ground floors.
Riverside, because of its unique design, has a unique problem. We have a street pattern that brings us some seclusion, and leaves us what Olmsted intended - a Service Core to provide convenient and necessary services for the Village residents. It was never designed as a “Central Business District— or laid out so as to attract visitors from other places. Our Village was perfectly designed to be and create what it is - a peaceful, tranquil oasis in a vast sea of mediocrity. Packing it with retail shops, compacting it with condos, will only detract from Riverside's best qualities. No one ever bought a house here because they thought Page Two
it was a great place to shop, and sadly, the harsh realities of retailing today dictate that off-the-beaten track locations in high priced new buildings are not viable for any but a select few businesses. That, coupled with the fact that much of Riverside's prime downtown property is in the hands of an owner who has not shown any willingness to improve his property , makes it all too clear that this thrust toward emulating the larger commuter suburbs is foolish, at best. More likely it a mere smokescreen to cover the drive to build the two hundred plus new units that the Metra-sponsored TOD study recommended and that our leaders can't stop salivating over.
And what about including our prized park, the Swan Pond, in this mess? Labeling the beauty spot of the Village as “blighted—, stating that it must be “improved,— harping about inane and inappropriate projects such as a paved “river walk— complete with a souvenir stand, a boutique hotel and catering facility, a community center - all in what we consider to be our cherished, tranquil riverside parkland, is patently foolish if not criminal. Why, one wonders, can't they just leave all this alone?
The answer, of course, is money. Real estate tax money. Legal fees. Sales tax money. Commissions on the sale of condos. Higher salaries. A few will make a little more money. Everybody else will get more kids and less money going to the schools, more strains on the infrastructure, more traffic in the center of town, more people from someplace else to come and utilize and throw trash in the parks. Just what we need.
Look at the record. This Board has botched every development project it has dealt with. I believe that allowing this Board in particular, maybe any Board, to be able to grab this kind of long-term money stream and spend it as they see fit to decide somewhere down the line, for whatever ill-defined projects they may conceive, is simply stupid and will be a serious blow to what Riverside's residents really care about - the quality of life here - now and in the days to come. Don't let this happen. Rise up and tell this Board of Trustees that, until they have presented a plan as to exactly what they propose to spend these funds for - NO TIF. If they still want to proceed they should do the work they should have done before they ever raised this issue, and allow the entire Village to participate in that planning., A well conceived plan that is supported by a majority of the residents should be a precursor to any such tax initiative. I urge all my fellow residents to tell this Board - loud and clear: NO PLAN - NO TIF!
I can't see how this has become any less valid. Having these workshops is an interesting exercise, but with less than 2% of Village residents attending, and so many ideas being thrown around in such a short space of time, I fail to see what it accomplishes. It seems to me that taking a full year to have an architectural school " study our studies" and develop some concrete and more detailed visions for us to look at is the minimum that should happen. If we really need to fix any water or sewer lines now, we can have a bond issue vote for that. Most of the rest can wait until we know where we are going, and what is behind all this "Rush to Judgement." Let's stop hiring these high priced consultants for 12 months and see what other expertise we can get from a school that is interested in doing a project like this. In the meantime, the Dam engineers can do their thing, the EDC can produce something that will induce visitors here to see our architectural treasures and maybe bring Zoo patrons into town. The VC will finish and fill up - or not - and we can strengthen our codes so nothing like that happens again. We can plant some more trees and cut back on paying lawyers and consultants so much money. We can find out what we want, what we can afford, where we want to go, before we act. What's wrong with that?
