by William Skink
Earlier this year a CBS info-graphic indicated I didn’t exist.
The Silent Generation exists, the obnoxious Baby Boomer Generation definitely exist and won’t shut up about it, and then there’s Millennials and Post-Millennials, according to CBS. Do you see anything wrong with this picture?
Apparently the millions of people born from 1961-1981–aka Generation X–don’t deserve to be counted as an existing generation anymore.
by William Skink
Thanks to this Missoulian article I am reminded of the fact there are many ways we get squeezed by the vice-grip of byzantine government processes. The article is a sticker shock warning about the coming price-tag for living in our wonderful mountain town utopia.
Here’s the technical way you will be getting fucked by Missoula’s hot market:
“It’s hard to answer about a particular property, not knowing what happened, but the (appraisal) methods are the same,” Talwani said. “It has to do with comparable properties selling for more than they did two years ago.”
The DOR also uses “cost” appraisals for commercial properties, where it calculates how much it will cost to build a similar structure, according to Missoula County Clerk and Treasurer Tyler Gernant. A third method is to calculate the income that could be derived from a property if it’s leased out for commercial purposes.
“The market’s been really hot, and the market values in looking at what your house could sell for … you can’t say it is wrong, but it is shocking,” Gernant said.
Hot market, more value, so more taxes. Tyler Gernant says you can’t say it’s wrong, which I take to mean legally wrong, and he’s right. But what about morally wrong?
There is some push-back bubbling up to the housing recommendations released last month worth checking out, and to its credit it was posted at Missoula Current. I appreciate Hermina Harold’s take on the cautious, development-friendly approach being suggested. Here’s the gist of the ask:
Recently, the Missoula City Council was handed a slate of housing policy recommendations to review, and they have work to do before the June 24 vote. The policy recommendations are skewed in the direction of developer incentives. These types of incentives largely failed when Bozeman and Whitefish tried them. Both cities have now switched over to mandatory inclusionary zoning policies.
We don’t have the luxury of time to wait and see if the incentives work and then change course. A University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research study from 2018 reported that when median wages are compared to median home prices, Missoula housing is already less affordable than Bozeman, Denver, Seattle, Portland and Miami.
I am asking our City Council and Missoula Redevelopment Agency to enact two regulatory policies to stop the displacement of working people: 1) mandatory inclusionary zoning and 2) Tax Increment Finance District affordability requirements.
All things considered, those aren’t extreme asks. But my hunch is they will be ignored.
It’s worth noting this “Community Voices” op-ed was quickly dropped for a big picture of people who do no actual manual labor holding shovels in yet another article about the first new build in Missoula’s TOZ.
Meanwhile, for everyone else, the squeeze just keeps squeezing.
by William Skink
This past week I took a critical look at gentrification in Missoula, and today will be no different. The ever-reliable cheerleader of development, the Missoula Current, is “reporting” on the celebratory ground breaking of the first new building on West Broadway to take advantage of the TOZ (Trump Opportunity Zone). From the link:
Two weeks after announcing its plans to break ground on a $5.8 million office building and restaurant in Missoula’s new opportunity zone on West Broadway, the firm behind the project will celebrate with a ground breaking on Monday.
Broadway Opportunity Fund plans to construct the building on 1.5 acres at 2000 Maple Street to serve as the future home of DJ&A. The larger 6.5-acre parcel was purchased by Engineer Support Services LLC in 2017 and also is expected to be redeveloped.
“Our community’s planning, programs and public investment help give confidence to companies like DJ&A who are investing in redeveloping the West Broadway corridor,” Missoula Mayor John Engen said in a statement. “In doing so, (they’re) creating jobs and opportunities and prosperity in our community.”
Yeah, opportunities and prosperity, but for who?
Cheerleaders of development gloss over the history of these zones and the people who often lose out because of them.
In the lefty political journal, Counterpunch, Amadi Anene provides some historical context and links to reports about these opportunity zones. Anene once served as a senior adviser in the Small Business Administration during the Obama administration, so maybe he’s someone the supposed liberal/progressives in Missoula will listen to?
This story goes back to the 1980s, when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government introduced 11 “enterprise zones” throughout the United Kingdom. Inspired, conservatives in the U.S. under President Ronald Reagan promoted the creation of these zones in 40 states.
Even many Democrats warmed to these zones as a viable pro-market approach to urban renewal. The idea resurfaced as “empowerment zones” under the Clinton administration in 1994.
Whatever you call them, they’re spaces where businesses can delay, reduce, or even eliminate taxes altogether on the money they invest.
From Thatcher to Reagan to Clinton to Trump, the concept that became the gentrifying TOZ has had some PR name tweaks, but retained the stench of a tax-avoidance scheme, which is clear to see once you look past the language the cheerleaders use to promote these “opportunities”.
Later in the article Anene addresses the argument of the cheerleaders, which he calls “advocates”:
Advocates argue that these incentives encourage investors to direct money into distressed communities in ways that will lead to new jobs, better housing, and other businesses being willing to open up shop in the revitalized community.
There are at least two problems with that argument.
First, many distressed communities suffer from economic challenges that investment alone cannot address, including redlining and housing discrimination. These communities need systemic policy changes that get at the root of discrimination to set the stage for lasting economic change.
Second, studies across the country (as well as in the U.K.) offer little evidence that such incentives actually benefit neighborhoods in the long run.
An expansive study of 75 enterprise zones in 13 U.S. states concluded that tax incentives had “little to no impact on economic growth.” One study of a zone in New Jersey even concluded that increased economic activity within its zone came at the expense of non-zones in the nearby area — the kind of zero-sum economics that would discourage investments in the long run.
A serious lack of evidence that these zones produce the desired economic impact won’t stop a duplicitous politician like Mayor Engen from parroting the same tired rationalizations of supposed opportunity and prosperity.
If people in Missoula want to understand the changes that are happening, then identifying and understanding the mechanisms of gentrification is one important step to take.
But you won’t understand if the only info you are getting is coming from cheerleaders like Engen.
by William Skink
Last month there was some good news on the affordable housing front when city and county officials announced a major affordable housing project to be built on land the county donated near the detention center. This housing will be targeting some of the most difficult to house individuals.
While this project is encouraging, Missoula’s persistent gentrification is removing other affordable housing options from the housing landscape. Once the Russell Bridge is finished, for example, low-rent motels like the Colonial are sure to be scraped, especially since that part of Broadway is a Trump Opportunity Zone.
Another looming development was announced last October when the owner of the Montaignes, located on the Hip Strip, warned tenants that change is coming once all the hurdles to gentrify the hip strip out of existence are surmounted.
You may think that last part sounds hyperbolic, but just you wait and see. It’s not just the affordable residential units under threat of disappearing, but the local small businesses as well.
Is getting rid of those small businesses the reason why Ken Duce (pronounced douche?) implied some of his commercial tenants are financially unreliable? Here’s what Duce had to say about his tenants from that Missoulian article last October:
The ground-floor retail stores include Bathing Beauties Beads, Shakespeare & Co. independent bookstore, Carlo’s One Night Stand vintage clothing and costumes, The Sports Exchange outdoor gear consignment shop, Joseph’s Coat yarn and fiber shop, and Logan’s Boot and Shoe Repair.
“The building is not a safe place to live anymore,” Duce explained. “The plumbing is constantly leaking. My partner that manages the building complains constantly about how much we spend on a constant basis with Fred the plumber. All those nice stores that are really fun to have in Missoula, they’re there because we pay their rent. They pay us almost nothing.”
Full disclosure, I am a very loyal customer of one of the businesses mentioned and had a conversation yesterday that was indicative of what development in Missoula has become. People who will be impacted by these changes are being excluded from meetings, they are being given condescending lip service from city leaders, and it sounds like they are being lied to in some circumstances.
You think Missoula is an inclusive community that supports local businesses and local artists? Sure, that’s the idea city leaders like to sell the public on, but reality can feel much different for those in the cross-hairs of gentrification.
Getting back to the article, the main hurdle keeping this project going forward appears to be parking:
Duce said the city’s planning department told him he would need 190 parking spaces because city zoning laws require a parking spot for every four chairs in a restaurant. The building is served by public transit and has some parking spot reductions “grandfathered in,” so Duce estimates that he needs to find 89 more spots to meet requirements. He told the Historic Preservation Commission that he would like them to grant a request in the future to reduce that number.
He also said he may try to get a zoning change, although he’s aware that neighbors in the area might be concerned about overflow parking spilling into residential streets. He said he’s also worked with Mayor John Engen and the Boone and Crockett Club, which owns the railroad depot building nearby and a parking lot, to see if they’d be interested in leasing parking spots. It will be a complicated process, and members of the Historic Preservation Commission said they couldn’t make a decision at this time.
Emy Sherrer, the city’s historic preservation officer, said that smaller restaurants like Clyde Coffee and Ciao Mambo on the Hip Strip were granted waivers by the previous officer in the past because they wanted a reduction of a small number of spaces. City code states that city zoning officer Mike Haynes, in consultation with Sherrer, are authorized to approve exceptions and waivers to minimum off-street parking ratios.
“Since this is such a large request, nothing has been determined/resolved as of yet,” Sherrer told the Missoulian in an email.
In another article that solicited responses from local businesses, the owner of Carlo’s One Night Stand had this to say about change along the Hip Strip:
Gilliam said modernization and redevelopment is slowly changing the character of the district.
“Pretty soon, you won’t be able to call it the Hip Strip anymore,” he said.
Yep.
To those who will be negatively impacted by this little piece of Missoula getting the gentrification treatment, I have some advice: don’t trust anything that comes out of Mayor Engen’s mouth, and watch out for City Council person Gwen Jones. I know from personal experience what can happen when you criticize the policies that turns the screws on Missoulians who aren’t developers, property owners, or donors to political campaigns.
by William Skink
I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: Missoula is not unique. Our housing problems are not unique, and the alleged solutions being proposed are not unique.
I’ve focused my criticism of Tax Increment Financing primarily on how Missoula has used it, but with Councilman Ramos taking his criticism to the swamp, I thought it might be interesting to see how other communities have used TIF to prime the pump of development.
Wouldn’t you know the center of political integrity in America–Chicago–exemplifies what one can achieve with TIF loot and political ambition. The article is from 2011, so it’s a little dated, but it’s still worth reading. Here’s snip:
Mr. Daley vigorously championed the use of TIF. By the end of his tenure in May, city officials had established more than 160 TIF districts that covered about one-third of Chicago. In total, the districts capture about $500 million a year, city and Cook County documents show.
The amount is equal to about one-sixth of the city’s annual core budget, although under Mr. Daley the money was not tracked or approved as part of the budgeting process, and his administration provided only a vague accounting of its TIF activities.
Mr. Emanuel has already made marked improvement in transparency by making TIF data public. He has promised to detail the flow of TIF dollars in his first city budget proposal, due in October.
Mayor Daley was an even drunken sailor than sailor Engen when it came to throwing around TIF largesse. According to the article, over his tenure, Daley spent 1.7 billion dollars in TIF money. Around 700 million of that money benefited private interests. Like Missoula, TIF money was also used in Chicago to cover budget problems–problems that wouldn’t exist if this skim & give scheme wasn’t siphoning cash from Chicago’s general fund.
Oh, that’s just Chicago, you might say, they can corrupt anything. But beyond Chicago there exists the larger question of whether or not TIF functions as advertised. Here’s a more recent article, titled Does Tax Increment Financing Really Work? Usually, No.
After describing how TIF is suppose to work, here’s the part that describes how it actually works:
Critics often charge that it funnels money out of the taxpayers’ pockets into a special fund that, by and large, works in a pretty opaque manner. While some of that money funds essential public works, much has also gone towards erecting new Whole Foods, renovating glitzy hotels, and building stadiums—the type of projects, one might argue, should not require such incentives. And the evidence Merriman analyzes suggest they may have a point. He shows that, in most cases around the country, the tool did not fulfill its main goal of boosting economic development.
“On average, [TIF] may be moving development from one part of the city to another, and changing the timing of the development, but there’s not more development than would have otherwise been made,” Merriman said.
In addition, this is a tool with several drawbacks. According to Merriman, TIFs might “capture” some tax revenue above the capped “base value” that may have been generated anyway through natural appreciation in property values if the TIF hadn’t been created. This is money that taxpayers might have otherwise paid directly towards an overlapping school district, or for public services. And while TIF is not a direct tax increase, it may lead to higher rates or service cuts elsewhere, if the city plans on bringing in the same general property tax revenue as before TIF.
It’s incredibly important to understand how all this works as the city of Missoula gears up to ask taxpayers to shoulder another bond to help address the affordable housing crisis. When you understand the skim & give scheme, that ask becomes offensive, as does the effort to put the majority cost of new sidewalks on home owners when Marriott Andy gets millions for his hotel sidewalks.
Hell, if Missoulians start figuring this out they may even want to know things like how much public money does MRA actually have in its piggy bank?
Or, maybe they’ll get radical and say, screw it, let’s get a voter resolution on the ballot to absolve MRA and its board and put control of the piggy bank directly into the hands of city council. That way, if us lowly citizens don’t like how our money is being used, we can vote the bastards out.