Kay "TIF" Barnes
EXCLUSIVE
Last night developers of the 1601 Jefferson project revealed to neighbors that they are hoping to use TIF money in order to finance their plans for luxury condos overlooking the city. The price range of the property would be more than one million dollars per unit.
What does this mean?
People with enough money to afford a living space worth a million bucks would be using YOUR TAX DOLLARS to finance their property.
Talk all you want about urban renewal and gentrification . . . in the end it comes down to a simple question: Do you want public money financing millionaires who want to live in luxury condos overlooking us all? So far, the mayor has yet to give her outright public support to the developers but this plan has her thin, witch-like fingerprints all over it. Currently, Country Club Kay is just returning from a vacation to Mexico, where she probably spent her time sending more local jobs south of the border.
Last night developers of the 1601 Jefferson project revealed to neighbors that they are hoping to use TIF money in order to finance their plans for luxury condos overlooking the city. The price range of the property would be more than one million dollars per unit.
What does this mean?
People with enough money to afford a living space worth a million bucks would be using YOUR TAX DOLLARS to finance their property.
Talk all you want about urban renewal and gentrification . . . in the end it comes down to a simple question: Do you want public money financing millionaires who want to live in luxury condos overlooking us all? So far, the mayor has yet to give her outright public support to the developers but this plan has her thin, witch-like fingerprints all over it. Currently, Country Club Kay is just returning from a vacation to Mexico, where she probably spent her time sending more local jobs south of the border.
posted by Tony Permalink
Tony, love your blog as I've said before, but you're a bit off-base on this one. By definition TIF funding uses the tax dollars the beneficiaries themselves pay, they don't use other people's tax money, so then the real question would be if they didn't receive the TIF funding would the project happen in Kansas City anyway? It's hard to say for sure, but certainly if whoever ends up buying these $1 million dollar homes didn't buy those, they could easily end up in Johnson County instead, contributing their tax money there.
Besides all that though, why should this development not receive a tax break like all the over-priced lofts going in downtown? Is 909 Walnut or the View more deserving somehow? I heard the top floor of the View is 2 penthouses that sold for $1.2 million each, and those units received full tax abatements for 25 years.
I don’t disagree. I’ve just always thought that any break or tax money taken off the table was pretty much an extra burden on the people paying taxes. Maybe “financing” million buck condos would have been more accurate. And you’re right, KC could risk losing even more of the jet set to JoCo and that might be a shame but I just have a horrible aversion to handing over the keys to the city to every millionaire who wants a nice view at the expense of longtime KC residents.
Point well taken, thanks for the comment and the info.
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