A Chicago alderman objecting to the creation of a new tax increment financing (TIF) district in his ward? 

It's not something you hear about every day.  But Brendan Reilly (42nd Ward) is reportedly pushing back against some East Loop property owners who want to see their area -- in the heart of downtown -- become eligible for TIF subsidies.  From Crain's Real Estate Daily:

“Owner reinvestment and market forces should ultimately decide ‘winners’ and ‘losers,’ not TIF subsidies,” Mr. Reilly said in a release. “The East Loop TIF proposal appears to provide a competitive advantage to those properties within the proposed TIF boundary. The intent of TIF was never to place surrounding properties (directly outside of the district, of similar age and class) at a leasing disadvantage. This proposal would very likely have exactly that effect.” [....]

“I do not agree that the needs within the proposed boundary come close to meeting the threshold level of obsolescence or deterioration the Illinois statute was designed to address,” Mr. Reilly wrote in a latter to Matthew Amato, a Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. executive who is general manager of the Aon Center. 

As we've repeatedly noted, while TIF was originally devised as an economic development tool for blighted neighborhoods, Mayor Daley has consistently overlooked that original purpose in order to create new TIF districts in affluent areas and throughout Chicago’s downtown.  The TIF network -- whose subsidies he directly controls -- now comprises nearly a third of the city's surface area and, on average, redirects $500 million away from local taxing bodies each year.  Moreover, Daley's unilateral ability to approve projects within the individual districts gives him massive power over individual alderman.

Kudos to Ald. Reilly for recognizing that more downtown TIF districts is not what this city needs.