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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Mayor's Campaign Website Polling on Landbanking Tax Credit

The Mayor Francis Slay's campaign website now features a "mini poll" on the current session of the Missouri legislature. One of the questions is interesting:

A bill being considered in the Missouri legislature would establish a tax credit to assemble large tracts of land for new development in low-income City neighborhoods. Is this a good idea?

Here are the choices for answers:

_ Yes, spurring large-scale development in City neighborhoods that have seen years of disinvestment is a good idea
_ No, the tax credit idea is fine, but the scale of the new development worries me
_ No, it's just wrong to use public incentives to encourage private development


See it for yourself here. Perhaps the mayor's stance will be influenced by the result of the mini poll.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL. The MayorSlay.com Mini-Poll is neither scientific nor predictive. It's just a fun way to encourage some weekly civic discusion.

BTW, wouldn't the state capitol building look handsome on the old P-I site?

PE

Anonymous said...

then why doesn't the mayor or his spokesperson or his staff say something about it rather than pretending that internet drivel passes for civic discourse.

Anonymous said...

Didn't you just post that here? It's working already.

PE

Anonymous said...

And according to hizzoner's speech today, it's his top legislative priority:

"I strongly believe that we have to be prepared to provide incentives to spur development in our more challenging neighborhoods. If the private sector was going to invest in those neighborhoods without assistance, it already would have done so. We must find ways to jump start that development.

There are three specific ideas that, working together, will do just that.

First, I have made passage of state legislation to establish a tax credit to assemble land for new development in low-income neighborhoods one of our highest legislative priorities.


Such a credit would make it much more likely that neighborhoods that cannot attract new investment on their own will see the same new life that trendier neighborhoods are already enjoying."

Link: http://www.mayorslay.com/news/20070427-stateofcity.asp

Anonymous said...

The biggest shock is the $2 million in block grant money that Slay has set aside. Will it all go to Paul McKee's project? What a terrible thing for Slay to do to north St. Louis -- silence for years while quietly building this stupid plan behind closed doors with McEagle and Arcturis. It's telling that they still can't find a real urban developer to get on board -- not that Geisman and Slay would know or care what that would look like.

Anonymous said...

Why doesn't ONSL attempt to become a National Historic District?

Matt Fernandez said...

The parts that qualify in ONSL already are. Personally, I'm not so worried about Blairmont specifically in ONSL. The neighborhood will viciously fight any plans to bulldoze that neighborhood. There's also a lot of new construction already there as well as terrific rehabs that should be the model for the rest of the northside. I'm worried about the rest of North St. Louis.

And to Publiceye, maybe a little more transparency in the activities would help alleviate some fear. Although if we all found out the true plans we would be able to really organize against it, and that would defeat the purpose of all the back room dealings.