TIDD Hugs and Understanding

The vote to amend the City of Albuquerque's ordinance regarding tax increment financing failed 5-4 last night.    Proponents for the changes were clear.   In short they said, you should understand consequences before you embrace something wholeheartedly. 

Councilor Cadigan spoke of baseball, failed promises of the railroad builders and the meaning of the  anti-donation clause in the New Mexico Constitution.  Councilor O'Malley described life, planning and TIDDs in all their fractal animal-print complexity.  Along with Benton and Garduno, they demonstrated understanding of the risks and rewards of  TIDD financing.

Opponents didn't say anything that even registered on the common-sense o-meter.  They have unquestioningly embraced the whole idea.  Curiously, Councilor Sally Mayer talked about her intelligence getting insulted and  Councilor Trudy Jones picked up this.  Ken Sanchez talked about how the City might get sued.   Chamber of Commerce, Homebuilders and NAIOP spoke against the bill and evoked the magic word -  jobs. 

A great piece from Planning and Environmental Law by Greg LeRoy about TIF is here.  New Mexico Voices for Children has good stuff here. 

From the LeRoy article:

How much is enough?  The U.S. is arguably well overbuilt in retail space, some of it subsidized by TIF.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation estimates the nation has 38 square feet of store space per capita, compared to other industrialized nations with between 1.5 and eight square feet (and eight square feet in the U.S. 30 years ago).

A 2001 study by the Congress for the New Urbanism and PriceWaterhouseCoopers about "grayfields"--the euphemism for dead malls--found that 7 percent of regional malls were already grayfields and another 12 percent were "potentially moving towards grayfield status in the next five years"; that would be 389 dead malls.