WOODLAWN — Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) has promised a community advisory council to oversee the proposed Washington Park TIF as the new taxing district neared a vote in City Council on Wednesday.
“This area is ideal for it,” Cochran said on Tuesday predicting the measure would easily pass in City Council.
The new taxing district would collect all future growth in the property tax base into a fund to be used for infrastructure improvements within the boundaries. The new TIF would encompass Washington Park and the adjoining neighborhood blocks from roughly Garfield Boulevard to 66th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway to Martin Luther King Drive.
Cochran said there are few projects in the district that would immediately be eligible for TIF funding beyond a residential and retail development at 5500 S. Michigan Ave. proposed by the Rev. Torrey Barrett, assistant pastor of Life Center Church of God in Christ and director of the Kleo Community Family Life Center.
Cochran said he wants the Washington Park District to have an advisory board of community members devoted exclusively to reviewing how TIF money is spent.
But some residents were still anxious about the new district on Tuesday and a group appealed to Cochran to hold off.
“I want them to delay it until he can come back to the community and have another meeting,” said Cecilia Butler, president of the Washington Park Residents’ Advisory Council.
Butler and five other members of the group marched in front of Cochran’s office at 6357 S. Cottage Grove Ave. on Tuesday claiming the alderman only had one meeting in April on the new taxing district.
She claimed residents were never given clear boundaries for the TIF before it started going through city approval process or explained why an industrial area at 63rd Street and State Street was added to the district after the meeting.
“They’re sitting on land and they’re paying taxes and it’s the ideal way for us to get better increment into the TIF,” Cochran said of the area that includes Ozinga building materials, Norfolk Southern railroad and other businesses in the shadow of the Chicago Skyway.
Cochran said he wants the TIF to prioritize attracting new housing and retail to the neighborhood and improving the existing housing stock and streets.
He said he expects it will be three to four years before the new district has collected enough tax revenue to support larger projects.
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