Village reassures residents in proposed South Mount Prospect TIF their homes won't be condemned
Mount Prospect resident Barbara Kellar has lived in her home since she was 10 years old - 66 years ago.
But now, she is concerned about losing her property, which is included in a proposed tax-increment financing district, or TIF.
Most of the properties in the proposed South Mount Prospect TIF are industrial or commercial. Its boundaries would be Dempster Street to the north with a short section between Linneman Road and Elmhurst Road; Busse Road to the west with a short section near Interstate 90; just west of Elmhurst Road on the east; and Oakton Street on the south.
The TIF area includes five homes. TIF districts freeze property taxes paid to the local governments at their current levels for 23 years, and taxes collected above those levels in the area go toward redevelopment efforts.
Kellar and another resident, Thomas Kost, both of whom live on the 400 block of Dempster Street, spoke at a public hearing on the proposed TIF Tuesday, voicing concerns about their properties being condemned.
The board is expected to vote on the TIF May 2.
Mayor Paul Hoefert tried to reassure Kellar and calm residents' fears.
"As long as I'm mayor, you're going to live there as long as you want to live there," he said. "We're not going to come in and condemn your properties and kick you off the property you've lived in since you were 10."
Kost said the village has the power to condemn property using eminent domain and told trustees "you don't know how it's going to be used by future boards."
The proposed TIF is a threat to his family and neighbors, he said.
Kost said the TIF area "is being mischaracterized as blighted and it cannot be developed without your taxpayer dollars."
But Hoefert clarified there is no vision for developing those
five properties.
Village Attorney Lance Malina said the five parcels were added to make the TIF area contiguous.
"That's not illegal," Malina said. "The idea that just because a parcel is in a TIF, it somehow is blighted or meets the criteria ... that's not how it works. You could have isolated properties that will never use any of the TIF dollars, but they're in the TIF."