THE LOOP — The Community Development Commission pushed a forward a new TIF district in Washington Park Tuesday over objections from residents that they were never given the boundaries of the new district.
“The Washington Park TIF is equal to a Ponzi scheme, a scheme designed to separate investors from their money,” Cecilia Butler, president of the Washington Park Advisory Council and a member of other community organizations, said at a Tuesday hearing at City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle St.
The proposed tax-increment financing district would capture all growth in the property tax base in Washington Park for 23 years and divert it into a special fund to pay for projects in the proposed district, which would stretch from Garfield Boulevard to as far south as 66th Street and from the Dan Ryan Expressway to Martin Luther King Drive and all of Washington Park.
Butler and other residents said those boundaries were never made clear at an April 8 meeting on the proposed district.
Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) denied that residents were not informed and said he held five meetings to talk about the new TIF.
He said he had the signatures of 400 residents supporting the TIF and support from neighborhood institutions.
“I am 100 percent in support of this TIF,” said Torrey Barrett, executive director of the KLEO Center, a youth services nonprofit. “I look at all these other communities adjacent to us that are benefitting because of TIF and Washington Park should be benefitting too.”
The DuSable Museum of African American History also signed on in support of the new TIF, adding it could be a possible funding source for expansion at the museum.
“They could be a big beneficiary of this,” Cochran said, adding that he also wants to bolster the work of KLEO, Washington Park and other institutions in the neighborhood.
He said some institutions have already been ruled out of ever getting any of the $25 million the TIF is expected to acquire over its 23-year lifespan.
“We won’t allow the University of Chicago to get any of this TIF,” Cochran said.
The university owns the Arts Incubator at 301 E. Garfield Blvd. and numerous vacant parcels along Garfield Boulevard in Washington Park.
Cochran said he wants the money to go to projects that couldn’t otherwise get funded.
He said he expected the City Council to easily pass the proposed district.
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