The city’s tax increment financing, or TIF, program is an economic
development tool, but it should really be called a Chicago bailout for
private companies, some Uptown residents said at a town hall meeting Thursday night as part of the CivicLab’s TIF Illumination Project.
“Why
don’t we call (TIF) Chicago welfare,” 46th Ward resident Ryne Poelker
asked at the meeting held at the Peoples Church of Chicago. “Why don’t
they call it a bailout?”
Property taxpayers in the 46th Ward paid
out about $87.6 million for TIF projects in the area since the inception
of the program under former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington through
2010, according to the CivicLab’s data analysis.
More
than half of that money went to private developers for projects such as
the Wilson Yard, a retail space at 4400 N. Broadway Ave., that houses a
Target, Aldi grocery store and low-income housing units. The project
received more than $50 million in TIF funds, according to the CivicLab. Read more »
