![]() Property taxes are low in areas like North and South Omaha and the difference between current and projected tax revenues is so negligible as to not be enticing to investors and developers without more incentives added. It needs to be, ‘We made the mess, and we need to get ourselves out of it.’”īut others would say that’s a simplistic way to look at the argument. “You can’t rely on the goodwill of people to do this. “We cannot just think that the market is going to do what it’s going to do, because what it’s done is create an enormous housing crisis,” Feichtinger said. And when she adds on the fact that Omaha is nearly 80,000 units short of meeting affordable housing demand, according to a new report from the Sherwood Foundation, it makes the inequity even more alarming. She sees similarities between maps of TIF funding today and those drawn up in the 1930s to keep poor and diverse people locked in their neighborhoods. ![]() The Home Owner’s Loan Corporation Map of Omaha created in 1937 that “redlined” certain neighborhoods making it nearly impossible to receive loans.Īdvocates like Erin Feichtinger of Together, a local nonprofit committed to ending hunger and homelessness, say TIF has become a revolving door of projects that never get denied to boost already burgeoning commercial districts. The problem is a friction between realism and idealism. By the time the TIF project is complete, typically a timeline of 15 years, the tax revenue is many multitudes higher than when it started. The Douglas County Acessor’s Office freezes the current property tax valuations and reimburses developers the difference as the values begin to rise. The stakes are low as a city doesn’t have to spend any real money. The program is designed to address “blighted” and “substandard” areas, known in Omaha as community redevelopment areas, and through a new amendment to the law “extremely blighted” areas, through redevelopment. Opposition like Smith’s as well as mounting calls to address housing inequity in Omaha have put TIF in the spotlight. She logged off her Zoom call with a middle finger facing the camera. Smith hoped she could sway councilmembers, but they unanimously approved the project. By that point, Smith’s landlord had already told her she was being kicked out. But when it came to her triplex at 33rd and Jones streets, Smith rallied neighbors and protested the market-rate apartments. Often TIF projects are approved with little fanfare. Though some TIF allotments receive scrutiny like the proposed $80 million for The Crossroads or tearing down three historic homes in the Gold Coast neighborhood, it’s not the norm. The new businesses in Blackstone, shining structures of glass and metal in Aksarben, most of downtown: TIF made them happen. Since 2006, the city’s subsidized more than half-a-billion dollars in development, according to an analysis by The Reader. TIF is the city’s most powerful tool to spur development. 12, 2021, the Omaha City Council voted to tear down two buildings on 33rd and Jones streets, one of which held Smith’s apartment, to make way for a 55-unit apartment complex financed partially through a city subsidy called tax increment finance. ![]() “Just because clearly didn’t matter to anybody.” The site of Sophia Smith’s former home at the intersection of 33rd and Jones streets on Nov. “I almost felt a little bit embarrassed afterwards,” Smith said recently. Less than a year later, Smith had to accept she’d lost the fight to keep it. While the triplex was old enough to be a historic landmark when she moved there in 2019, it was otherwise an unremarkable piece of turn-of-the-century architecture in Omaha. Sophia Smith could feel every year of the 96-year-old apartment whenever she walked across the squeaky wood floors. The inset medicine cabinet still had a razor blade slot. Intricate, worn octagons of black and white tile covered the bathroom floor.
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