I sat through the Landmarks Committee meeting yesterday, and it was hard to stay in my seat and keep my mouth shut. I was stunned by the misinformation my own alder gave the committee about capital budget requests and the Edgewater TIF plan the council is voting on tonight. It was a tough meeting to blog, because it was very conversational as they were working through some issue, so I didn’t do my usual blog, though in retrospect, I really wish I would have. Here’s the two issues that made me just a little crazy. The second, worse than the first.
LANDMARKS PLAQUES
The Madison General Ordinances requires that the City of Madison to prepare and install plaques when landmarks are designated.
33.19(5)(g) Recognition Of Landmarks And Landmark Sites. At such time as a landmark or landmark site has been properly designated in accordance with subsections (4) and (6) hereof, the commission shall cause to be prepared and erected on such property at City expense, a suitable plaque declaring that such property is a landmark or landmark site. Such plaque shall be so placed as to be easily visible to passing pedestrians. In the case of a landmark, the plaque shall state the accepted name of the landmark, the date of its construction, and other information deemed proper by the commission. In the case of a landmark site which is not the site of a landmark building, such plaque shall state the common name of the site, and such other information deemed appropriate by the commission. (Renumbered by Ord. 11,070, 12-6-94)
The problem is, there is no money in the budget. As the commission discussed this item, Alder Manaici informed the committee that they needed to have matching funds in order to get the request into the budget. She said that was the only way it was likely to happen.
What? Really? Where the hell did that come from? Most capital budget requests don’t have matching funds. And in this case, the expenditure is required by ordinance. She pointed to Olive Jones Park and Tenney Park as examples of why they needed matching funds. Then, she continued to press the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation to be part of the matching funds. Even after they discussed the fact the plaques cost about $500 a piece if aluminum and about $800 if brass and the staff from the Trust indicated they only grant about $500 per year and that they’d love to pay the price difference between aluminum and brass, but simply don’t have the funding. This is not a major parks project, this is a item required by ordinance that the city is supposed to pay for, it says so right in the ordinance.
I felt bad for the committee members for being mislead like that. This is the type of thing that should be relatively easy to get into the capital budget and its something that an active staff and commission alder could have gotten the Director of Planning and Community and Economic Development Director to get into the budget if he was doing his job.
EDGEWATER TIF DISCUSSION
I was absolutely stunned, just stunned, when Alder Maniaci informed the committee that the Council was just amending the boundaries of the TIF and not amending the project plan, and that they would be coming back in a year to add in additional project plan costs. So, they didn’t need to worry about the improvements for the historic district at this time. That they would come back in a year and take care of that later.
Seriously, just look at the title of what the council is approving tonight:
SUBSTITUTE Second amendment of Tax Incremental District (TID) #32 (State St), City of Madison, and approving a Project Plan and Boundary for said amended TID.
The Resolution says:
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Common Council of the City of Madison finds that:
3. The project costs as described in the amended Project Plan relate directly to promoting blight elimination in the area consistent with the purpose for which the Tax Incremental District is being
amended.
Attached to the resolution is the SUBSTITUTE Second Amendment to Tax Incremental District (TID) No. 32 Project Plan (Upper State St) and in it, there are statements such as:
It is the City of Madison’s intent in amending TID #32 to provide assistance to Hammes’ redevelopment of the Edgewater Hotel, to construct public improvements to Gorham and Carroll Streets and to fund a Small Cap TIF program for the revitalization of existing housing stock. The purpose of these activities will be to further the City’s efforts to eliminate blight, revitalize the Edgewater Hotel area, and enhance public access to the Mendota lake front and replace aging public infrastructure.
What’s galling, is that the Small Cap TIF program is what the committee members were asking about, that, and other possible things to enhance the historic district. Including, possibly the plaques.
When the alder told them that this would be dealt with later, and that only the boundaries were being amended, the committee member then requested that this item be put on their agenda to be discussed at a later date.
After the meeting, I walked up to the committee member, showed her the legislative file on my computer and informed her that the council was discussing and voting on this the next night. She asked Alder Maniaci, why, if she was the sponsor of this item, she wasn’t aware that the plan was being amended. She stuck to her story, that they were just amending the boundaries and they would be amending the plan for public infrastructure costs later.
I wish she were right and this wasn’t being added to the project plan:
Revitalization Loans
Where necessary or convenient to the implementation of the Amendment, TIF assistance in the form of
loans may be provided to private development projects that demonstrate that “but for” such TIF
assistance, the project would not occur.TIF Law allows such funds to be used to reduce the cost of site acquisition or site improvements including
the construction or razing of buildings, parking facility construction, site preparation, environmental
remediation, landscaping and similar types of related activities.
The estimated cost of this activity is $16,000,000.
And I wish the Landmarks Commissioners were appropriately informed that the “help” for the historic district amounts to this:
Small Cap TIF Loans
The Amendment contemplates the creation of a Small-Cap TIF Loan program. This program would help
those households interested in rehabilitating existing rental property by converting units that may have
housed large numbers of tenants to owner-occupied property of one to three units. The Common Council
authorized $300,000 per year over 5 years in the 2010 Capital Improvements Plan (CIP).
The estimated cost of this activity is $1,500,000.
But .. . much of the historic district isn’t in the proposed boundary changes and there is no Small Cap TIF program for the area and when they did this in Bassett, the project was delayed and delayed until the funds were expired. And in this case, the funds expire in 2015, so the likelihood of the funds getting used is slim to none.
These costs can be found on page 5 of the document: Proposed TID #32 Second Amendment Project Plan Costs. The total costs are: $45,975,000 as opposed to the original budgeted costs with the first amendment of: $28,611,000
I feel bad for committees that get mislead and get bad information and therefore make decisions that make them ineffective. This might be the worst example I’ve seen in a long time.
SOMEONE SHOULD TELL THE JOINT REVIEW BOARD
But worse yet . . . the Joint Review Board should be told if there are plans to come back and amend the project plan again for additional costs that would keep the TIF district open even longer. That is one of the major concerns of the committee. Right now, they are being told that the district would close in 2019. If the real plan it to keep it open longer, they are misleading the School Board, the County and MATC.
ONE OTHER EDGEWATER NOTE RE: HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLAQUES
During the discussion of the plaques, Alder Maniaci asked if the Hammes Company/Edgewater had been working with the Madison Trust on historic improvements for the area. She was clearly under the impression that Hammes was working on this, just like they were working with labor, and including it in the community benefits plan (that they won’t show us) and she thought they mentioned that at the press conference. Jason Tish indicated that Hammes had not contacted him. She recommended that he talk to Hammes cuz the thought they could easily buy the plaques for the neighborhood, that wouldn’t be a problem. Someone want to tell Bob Dunn what she just committed him to?
