Review board favors proposed Geneva TIF district
An advisory panel in Geneva favors establishing a new tax increment financing district to offer up to $185 million in city aid to develop former farmland on the southeast edge of the town.
On Tuesday, the Geneva Joint Tax Increment Financing Review Board unanimously recommended that the city council create TIF District 4.
The district would encompass a 297-acre area north of Fabyan Parkway, south of Route 38 and east of Kirk Road. The land is unincorporated, but the city has received two requests for annexation.
A consultant hired by the city says developing the site will require an estimated $86 million in public works projects, including adding an electrical subdivision and installing water, sanitary sewers and stormwater sewers.
Much of the land was farmed for more than a century.
The consultant said the site qualifies to become a TIF district because it is blighted due to chronic flooding. Stormwater runoff from the property contributes to downstream flooding of Kress Creek, the Fox River and the Mississippi River.
In addition, the consultant said the area meets several other criteria for forming a TIF district.
In a tax increment financing district, property tax payments to governments are frozen at the current level for 23 years. Any increase in property taxes ‒ the “increment” ‒ that comes in is set aside in a special fund and used to pay for the work that led to an increased value for the site.
The city could front the money for the expenses and recoup it from the tax increment. To come up with the cash, the city can borrow money.
None of the board members asked any questions of the consultant. Nor did they discuss their votes.
Only four taxing districts sent a representative to the meeting: the city, Waubonsee Community College, the Geneva Library District and Geneva Unit School District 304.
Kane County, the Kane County Forest Preserve District, Geneva Township, the Geneva Township Road District and Geneva Park District representatives did not attend.
Several members of the public spoke against the TIF on Tuesday. Two said they had not seen the land flood, with one noting that if it did, farmers wouldn’t have been able to farm it. Another speaker called TIF districts “corporate welfare,” saying that if the company proposing the business park couldn’t afford to finance the project, it shouldn’t have bought the land.
There will be a public hearing on the proposed TIF on June 3. The city council expects to vote on it on June 17.