Tao, thanks for the excellent report. I think you summed up part of the problem with your parsing of the meeting agenda title.

The problem with residents and their social concerns is that residents with social concerns don't buy condos. Or build them. Or have consultants to advise the City on their social concerns that could be addressed by building condos.

to INTRODUCE the CONCEPT that the City Council will soon CONSIDER a PROPOSAL to ALLOW the KCDC to BEGIN to PREPARE a DRAFT of a PLAN to establish a tax increment finance district.

Besides the concept to consider proposal to prepare plan, after so many successful (sarcasm here) projects initiated by City Council for "redevelopment, I suggest anyone besides the developers and recipients of tax increment financing should be very afraid of this project.

Ok, I was there.  As usual, there's more to the story than meets one person's eye.

 This meeting was specifically to talk about beginning the process for implementing a TIF district.  Other neighborhood topics that came up, like the half-way houses, were treated with respect, but the proper folks from the City were NOT PRESENT to help with a meaningful discussion of them.  Dave Hill promised that these issues would be taken back to the City/County building and brought back to the neighborhoods.  If he doesn't follow through, then shame on him.  And yes, the neighborhoods have been waiting for far too long.  Shame on the City for that too.

But last night's meeting had another purpose, one that a lot of folks came to talk about, and it was important to get that discussion accomplished.

On to the TIF:  First, it's important to understand that under state law, the only way to establish a TIF district is with a redevelopment district.  The "plan" that's required for that will essentially be the vision plan recently developed by the consultants with lots of input from citizens and adopted by Council, along with pieces of the action plan and the financial plan.  KCDC is NOT going out to develop some other completely new plan.  Also, the plan will contain a list of restrictions on the use of eminent domain to make certain that the intent of the plan to protect the existing neighborhoods is implemented.

Why do we need the TIF, you ask?  Here's how it works:  city & county tax revenue from the district is frozen at the level as of the date the district is established.  Then all projected additional tax revenues from new development over the lifetime of the TIF are estimated (we already have some estimates in the financial plan, but I'm sure more refined estimates will follow).  Then the City can borrow against that estimate and use the $$ to fund infrastructure (streets, sidewalks, parks, riverwalk, etc. etc.) in the district ONLY.  None of this $$ will go to developers; it will go to funding infrastructure improvements that all district citizens will benefit from.  So the "recipients of the TIF" will essentially be everyone who lives and works in the district.

BTW, the Oversight Committee has also begun discussing way to assist the folks in existing neighborhoods.   The determination has been made to "leave them alone" - e.g., the City will NOT be taking their property, but we also don't want to "leave them ALONE."  That is, we want to provide incentives and assistance for them as part of the effort.  Look for more info as this process moves along.

There was a very informative handout sheet from last night that I would scan and post, but it will be on the City website soon.  Look for that too.

In short, while folks should have questions and concerns (and I found the discusssion last night serious and productive rather than heated - although God knows the room was hot!), and it was wonderful to see so many folks there last night (the digit not among them), it's imporant to realize that this is just one more step in the process, not some new and scary wrinkle.