Late last night, the Missouri State Senate voted to pass House Bill 1, the economic development bill containing, among other things, the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit and the Quality Jobs Tax Credit.
The vote was 25-7 with one absence.
Among those voting in favor of the bill were Senators Maida Coleman and Rita H. Days. The two announced last week they will be hosting a forum on “land assemblage and the potential impact on the community” on Monday, September 10, from 6:00-7:30 pm at Harris-Stowe State University.
They will be joined by State Representatives Esther Haywood, Juanita Head-Walton, and Robin Wright-Jones; and former State Rep Amber Boykins.
St. Louis City’s other two senators, Harry Kennedy and Jeff Smith, also voted in favor of the bill, which now heads back to the House today and a conference committee possibly this afternoon.
By a unanimous vote yesterday, a State Senate committee approved House Bill 1, the economic development package which includes the controversial Distressed Area Land Assemblage Tax Credit. The committee also passed two amendments to address some outstanding concerns with the credit. From the Post-Dispatch:
The revision stipulates that the tax credit cannot assist developers with outstanding fines, bills or taxes to a municipality. As of last month, public records indicate that McKee owed more than $35,000 in fees to the city for providing upkeep at the abandoned tracts, though city officials say they are satisfied the money will be paid.
The panel also approved an amendment ensuring that public hearings are held before the approval of any project qualifying for the tax credit. Last week, the House approved an amendment requiring local elected officials to sign off on qualifying projects.
State Rep. Jamilah Nasheed told the committee yesterday that her area didn’t want the $95 million Land Assemblage Tax Credit.
“Until we understand it and until we know better what’s going to take place in the areas we represent, we don’t want it,” said Nasheed.
She said developer Paul McKee has been “disrespectful to the local elected officials” and she thinks it is “pathetic” for anyone to support the tax credit without first seeing his plan for the area.
Michael Allen, the blogger whose research into the once-mysterious Blairmont land acquisitions led to all the attention the Land Assemblage Tax Credit is getting today, testified yesterday in Jefferson City on ways to make the legislation better.
St. Louis Alderman Charles Quincy Troupe, a longtime critic of the city’s Land Reutilization Authority’s land-banking policy, testified today in Jefferson City that the proposed Land Assemblage Tax Credit would be good for north St. Louis — but only if it was amended to require any redevelopment plan eligible for the credit to first be approved by the Board of Aldermen.
Troupe said St. Louis has suffered over the years from “corrupt and backwards and sometimes outright stupid” policies. He pointed to the twenty-year-old LRA policy of acquiring thousands of properties, mostly in north St. Louis, and routinely denying independent rehabbers a chance to purchase one or two properties at a time.
With the protection of local control, Troupe said he supports this tax credit bill and sees it as promising for much needed investment.
Following Troupe’s testimony, State Rep. Rodney Hubbard* offered an amendment, which was approved by the committee, to require any redevelopment plan to be approved by the the Board of Aldermen. *Hubbard is a client of A.D. French & Associates
Poisoning the well of good faith negotiations in trying to reach a compromise on the controversial Land Assemblage Tax Credit is the amount of anger and raw emotion people have towards its chief architect, Paul McKee, and the amount of damage he has done to a community already devastated by decades of neglect.
“Paul McKee creates blight,” said 5th Ward Alderman April Ford Griffin last week as she showed legislators and her aldermanic colleagues long-standing brick buildings which now sit with entire walls spilled out onto its once green yard.
She told the other lawmakers about reports from neighbors of mysterious men ramming Bobcats into the sides of buildings, which only months before housed families, causing the walls to fall onto themselves and leaving the building open to the elements, looters and drug dealers.
Some scenes in the video you are about to watch look like they were filmed in the most devastated areas of New Orleans. Mr. McKee and others will point to these images and say this is why he needs this tax credit. What is important for Missouri’s state legislators to understand, say city aldermen, is that just 18-24 months ago, many of these buildings were homes with families living in them. Then Blairmont came.
This is where the anger comes from.
But after all the anger surrounding this one man, what St. Louis’ Legislative delegation must remember is that this problem is larger than one man, even this man who in the short-term has made the situation worse.
There are 100 million dollars in much needed tax credits on the table. The challenge over the next few days is how to make them available to people who do care about these communities, organizations and developers who are respectful of the people of these areas and sensitive to their desires about the future of their community, and not to reward a man who has for so long, so blatantly disregarded the men, women and children forced to live next to his piles of bricks and self-made blight.
When it comes to the proposed Land Assemblage Tax Credit, the devil is in the details.
A story in today’s Post-Dispatch says leaders in the Republican-controlled legislature are confident that a scaled-back version of Governor Matt Blunt’s economic development package will pass during the special session which begins tomorrow. Included in that package is the controversial tax credit which as originally passed seemed to include parameters that only one known developer could qualify for.
Developer Paul J. McKee Jr. has purchased more than 500 tracts of land in and around Old North St. Louis, land that could be used in part to qualify for such tax credits.
Blunt says the new bill would broaden the program so that more developers could participate. Under the latest draft, the subsidy could go to those who buy at least 50 acres for projects covering at least 75 acres in low-income areas. Up to $10 million in credits could be issued each year until the total hit $95 million.
The sponsor, Sen. John Griesheimer, R-Washington, Mo., said he believed the new proposal satisfies concerns that the program was designed for one man. Griesheimer added that McKee “ought to be nominated for sainthood” for investing in decaying areas of St. Louis.
Senator Griesheimer may feel differently about McKee’s qualifications for sainthood after he watches PubDef’s latest video on the St. Charles developer’s northside activities. Check back Monday for that special report.
Lowering the requirement of the acreage needed in order for a developer to qualify for the tax credit is a step in the right direction, said the original Blairmont watchdog, Michael Allen. But at 50 acres, the bill would still make McKee the only likely applicant in Old North St. Louis.
“What we need is a threshold much lower than that, closer to half that number,” said Allen. “At 20 to 25 acres, other developers and even established neighborhood organizations could apply and receive these tax credits.”
PubDef will be reporting this week from the special session in Jefferson City, following the negotiations as legislators, lobbyists and residents try to reach a compromise.
According to the Post, the Legislature’s schedule calls for a House committee to hold a hearing on the bill on Tuesday. The full House will vote Thursday. A Senate hearing will take place Aug. 27 and the full Senate could vote Aug. 29.
A group of St. Louis legislators, including State Reps Jamilah Nasheed, Jeanette Mott Oxford and Rodney Hubbard*, State Senator Harry Kennedy, Aldermen April Ford Griffin, Dionne Flowers, Freeman Bosley, Sr., Jeffrey Boyd, Marlene Davis, Terry Kennedy, Frank Williamson, Bill Waterhouse, and Aldermanic President Lewis Reed*, today called for the controversial Land Assemblage Tax Credit to be amended during next week’s special session.
When a group of local lawmakers lead a tour of some of north St. Louis’ most blighted areas Thursday, they’ll do so to call attention to the need for development and state investment in those areas.
They’ll also be illustrating why they believe the proposed $100 million Land Assemblage Tax Credit should be amended to allow other developers besides Paul McKee to qualify for it.
State Reps Jeanette Mott Oxford, Jamilah Nasheed and Rodney Hubbard*; and Aldermen April Ford-Griffin and Marlene Davis will lead a group of invited guests, including other state legislators, around parts of the 5th and 19th Wards where McKee has quietly aquired more than 500 properties.
Many of McKee’s buildings have become eye sores and nuisance properties in neighborhoods occupied by longtime residents holding out for the city’s “renaissance” to come their way and new residents pioneering to rehabilitate a once great area.
Oxford and Davis each told PubDef that they welcome the state’s attempt to spur development, but that they would like to see the legislation, which will be voted on next week, amended to allow more developers to participate.
The legislators’ press conference is set for Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at 2950 Montgomery, with a bus tour to follow at 10:30 a.m.
PubDef will be reporting next week from the special session in Jefferson City, following the negotiations as legislators, lobbyists and residents try to reach a compromise that allows north St. Louis to benefit from needed investment, while not cutting all but just one or two would-be developers out of the project. *Rodney Hubbard is a client of A D French & Associates
