A Tiff over TIFs

In the wake of Coralville's brazen attempt at bribery to peel Von Maur away from Sycamore Mall and out to the Iowa River Landing, there's been a flurry of coverage on the issue of TIF (tax incremented financing) districts and their drawbacks and potential- with some lawmakers calling for a review of Iowa's TIF statute over concerns that Coralville might be stretching it a little too far.

All of this raises a potentially interesting question: does Coralville have an edge or is it just selling its soul to a ginormous TIF district that'll come back to bite it in the ass someday? A couple of nice articles in the Press-Citizen explore this a little bit, ranging from the overall use of TIF in the county to the impact it has on other services- especially given the loss of tax revenue involved in promoting a TIF district.

Over at FromDC2Iowa, Nick Johnson weighs in as well with some more reasons why TIF's should be used a lot more judiciously than they are now- all 3 are well worth a read.

As a local development group eyes a Hampton Inn for Iowa City and the controversy still rages in University Heights about a proposed development (where the developer was asking for a TIF, of course, the questions will probably continue. I think there are a couple of things worth touching on here: first, Iowa City is not Coralville- we shouldn't get tagged with their brush, especially given that I don't think financing for the proposed Riverfront Crossing District has been locked in stone yet.

I'm not against TIF's where they're appropriate- turning your whole town into a giant TIF, like Coralville seems to secretly want to do, is a little bit of overkill for me though.

Will this Riverfront Crossing thing work without TIF financing? I don't know- I don't even know if it's that good of an idea, given all the flooding we've had- even with the gigantic greenspace the plans call for. That area of town could do with a facelift though- a Hampton Inn also wouldn't be that out of place, but beyond that, we've gotta have a sensible conversation about what Iowa City should look like in the future. All this insistence on a local identity and blah blah blah doesn't really impress me much. We've haven't had that since elementary school- and we need to do something. I'm just not sure what. I do know that I'm getting sick and tired of spending my money in Coralville. Or at Wal-Mart... and we can do something about that- but only if we want too.