But a recent news story gave another twist to the idea of cities as romantic partners.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that NorthPoint Development called off a $120 million apartment complex of over 300 units and will soon sell the site. Why? Because the city was constantly making additional demands. What started as a yes was becoming a maybe. NorthPoint backed out.

The Post-Dispatch quoted St. Louis Development Corp. Executive Director Otis Williams as saying, “if we just stuck to whatever we said we wanted to do,” the project would have continued.

Alderman Michael Browning alleged the city wasn’t “good-faith negotiators. With all of the unpredictable things in development, the city does not need to be the thing that constantly changes.”

Yes, the city needs to be consistent. But that does not mean the city should crank the subsidy spigot to full blast.

The story notes the number of projects receiving subsidies from the St. Louis Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) has dropped since 2018. The chairman of the LCRA, Matt McBride, argued that because there are so few developers wanting to work with the city, “we need to be encouraging of those who are taking the risks to do so.” I suspect by “encourage” he means, “subsidize.” The folks who hand out subsidies always want more to hand out.

Perhaps there is another way. Perhaps, instead of overregulating the market, instead of demanding ever increasing concessions, instead of imposing costly application, permitting, and approval stages, the city just got out of the way of those who want to build in St. Louis?

City leaders should work to address barriers to development rather than leaving them in place and cutting checks to offset them. They’ve already shown a willingness to do so with liquor regulations and parking mandates.

Unfortunately, Megan Green, president of the board of aldermen, wants to further increase the city’s demands of developers regarding affordable housing and community benefits. But that will just increase the costs for developers and, in turn, increase the amount of taxpayer subsidies. “St. Louis,” she says, “has been a cheap date for way too long, and we should not be a cheap date.”

It calls to mind the bawdy punchline: ‘We’ve already established that, madam. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

Unfortunately, taxpayers are picking up the tab for these dalliances. Instead of seeking more expensive dates, St. Louis should make itself a more attractive partner by ditching its baggage and focusing on stable, long-term relationships.

The post St. Louis Needs to Stop Dating and Settle Down appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

North Side Grant Project Is a Disaster

The revelations about the North St. Louis Small Business & Non-Profit Grant Program being managed by the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) keep coming. The entire grant program is rife with political favoritism, but at least the places connected to politicians actually exist! It turns out some of the other recipients of the grants are not, shall we say, real entities, like this “museum” just north of the Central West End:

The museum’s website advertises a facility, historical exhibits and a passion for illustrating the history of the Mississippi River and the people who have lived on its banks. But its address leads to a brick four-family structure in a neighborhood just north of the Central West End. No one answers the door, even during advertised business hours. And the building itself is surrounded by weeds and overgrowth.

“I’ve never heard anything about that place being a museum,” said Ray Sims, a longtime neighbor of the building. “How do I get the money?”

It’s almost like word got out that the SLDC was just giving away free money and, shockingly, people started making up reasons to get free money.

Recipients of Large Tax Subsidies Under Indictment

Does the SLDC make better decisions when dealing with big-time developers instead of ordinary people? Apparently not. Last week, the heads of a major St. Louis and Kansas City development firm were indicted in St. Louis for allegedly submitting false documents regarding minority-hiring rules. While this is the first indictment of these men (everyone is, of course, innocent until proven otherwise), their questionable business practices have been well known. Yet they have consistently received massive tax subsidies for work in St. Louis and Kansas City: particularly the latter in recent years.

Five Lux Living projects in Kansas City have been approved for incentives since 2021, including a $200 million apartment/hotel at 14th and Wyandotte streets.

Is it fair of me to blame the SLDC for an act  by private citizens or companies seeking subsidies? Perhaps not, but when politicians and bureaucrats choose who gets subsidies, don’t be surprised when unpleasant actors start circling. After all, political donations and tax subsidies have a strong connection:

For instance, around the country, politicians who make these deals are more likely to receive campaign donations, and they’re more likely to be re-elected. On the flip side, companies that make political donations to relevant officials are four times more likely to enjoy subsidy deals than those that don’t, and their deals are more than 60% bigger, to boot.

Again, it’s shocking, I know . . .

Maryland Heights Uses General Taxes to Make up for Failures

It isn’t just large cities that abuse economic development policy. Suburbs do it all the time, and they don’t always do it with misplaced tax subsidies. Sometimes, cities make the mistakes all on their own.

Several years ago, Maryland Heights decided to get into the ice arena business. Not a normal ice rink for its residents, mind you; that would have been understandable. City leaders apparently wanted to act like private developers and build a massive hockey and skating complex to make money for the city. This is, usually, a big mistake for cities.

It definitely was a big mistake for Maryland Heights. The city has announced that it has again been forced to tap into general tax revenues to fund the bond payments after its predicted ice complex revenues have continued to fall short. Part of the reason revenues fell short is that both Maryland Heights and the ice complex failed to collect a sales tax for several years that was implemented to pay for the bonds. I don’t know if that is funny, sad, or both.

Cities do not have to engage in economic development schemes to succeed. Unilateral disarmament is the best option all around. Until that happens, expect stories like these to be a regular occurrence.

The post It Has Been a Great Week for Economic Development Agencies in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I am confident that the media will get that information, and I am as interested as anyone to learn more. But let’s be honest here–what we already know about the program makes it clear that this “grant” program smells like a racket. Let’s look at what this program is giving away as part of this $32 million “grant” program.

A former state representative is getting $1.5 million to expand her consulting company to create more affordable housing and grow the economy by two—that’s right, two—new jobs.

A former mayor is getting two grants for a total of $125,000 to expand and improve the bar he owns in the city.

Sweetie Pie’s restaurant is getting $1.5 million to expand operations, despite some recent problems with management and operations at the restaurant.

Non-profits are included too, and perhaps that is more understandable, but one non-profit that was only created after the program was announced last year is in line for over $700,000. Surprisingly, the director of that non-profit is connected to a politically influential family. I know, you’re shocked . . .

The list goes on. When the program was announced, officials claimed it was a way to invest in North St. Louis. But it isn’t investing in infrastructure or things that can benefit the public. The program simply seems to be a way to give away tax dollars to North Side businesses. That’s it. There is no way this should be legal.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Consider the comments of one business owner who, admittedly, did not receive funding:

“The whole process has just been problematic from day one,” said Tameka Stigers, who applied unsuccessfully for a grant to expand her hair salon, Locs of Glory, on Delmar Boulevard and has been rallying other disgruntled business owners to lobby SLDC for reconsideration. “It’s a genuine money grab from the city to give the money to their friends.” [emphasis added]

I couldn’t have said it better myself. We will have more to come on this issue, I assure you.

The post The North Side “Grant” Program is a Racket appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While I recognize the appropriate use of aldermanic courtesy in some instances, I am the last person to defend its widespread practice. Laws should be applied evenly to the greatest extent possible, and too often aldermanic courtesy just enhances the whims and personal power of the practitioners. Whether your new restaurant is allowed to serve liquor should not depend on whether the alderman likes you or not.

Recent unfortunate events in the City of St. Louis have brought the practice justifiably into question, but like a desperate gambler whose every bet is wrong, the board of alderman can’t even get ethical reform right. The board just decided to bypass the usual practice of aldermanic courtesy in the 17th Ward FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS. The local alderwoman had been more hesitant to support tax subsidies in her ward, and she deserves praise for that (and some related criticism). So the developers who want their giveaways just found another member of the board to introduce their subsidy bill, and it is expected to pass.

The most absurd statement in the story is this one:

In any case, [Alderman Marlene] Davis said aldermen should be willing to listen to the “experts at SLDC,” who professionally vet development projects.

The idea that “experts” at the St. Louis Development Corporation actually “vet” these development subsidy requests is beyond absurd. The ease and frequency in which developers receive these subsidies, combined with the continued decline of much of the City of St. Louis, are Exhibits A through Z for why all these types of subsidies don’t work.

These tax subsidies are there for the taking. A few aldermen, such as Ms. Pihl, occasionally try to push back somewhat. So what happens then? You just find another member of the board to go around the member who won’t rubber stamp your handout. If this is how we are going to reform aldermanic courtesy in the City of St. Louis, then bring back the crooked assessor.

The post Aldermanic Discourtesy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Unfortunately, that isn’t usually what happens in practice when government tries to help business.

Consider a recent story in the St. Louis Business Journal about the owner of the Civil Life brewery and his effort to use taxpayer subsidies to expand. Everyone seems to be well meaning, but good intentions aren’t enough in designing good policy.

The business owner sought special tax treatment from the city in order to expand his business. The St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) agreed, and the businessman thought he had a deal. Before the 33-member St. Louis Board of Aldermen—and you thought presidential primaries were crowded—could approve the deal, one member introduced a resolution seeking a slightly better deal for the city. The owner objected to this new deal and scrapped the expansion plan.

The executive director of the SLDC told the Journal, “Generally, most of the aldermen are very comfortable with our analyses.” I cannot understand why this would be the case. The SLDC’s own examination of its economic development incentives concluded, “. . . it is clear that the City gains no net benefit from an extremely costly program with no real economic development impact.” The SLDC’s point is that they are necessary to help save the city from enacting bad programs. But if that’s the case, why is St. Louis rife with extremely costly programs with no real economic development impact?

In the Journal piece, Megan Green, the alderwoman who sought a better deal in this particular case, made an excellent point about the business in question:

If their business model is such that they cannot expand and pay a few thousand dollars more in taxes, the difference between a 95 percent and 90 percent abatement, after having a 100 percent abatement for the last eight years, then the business model needs to be re-evaluated.

Unfortunately, this statement didn’t go far enough. If the business needs any subsidy at all then the business model may need to be re-evaluated. After all, if a business is seeking a subsidy, the business owner in question has an idea that private investors do not think is a good one. If private investors won’t invest their own money, why should taxpayers invest theirs?

This whole episode speaks to the utter dysfunction of economic development policy in St. Louis. If the alderwoman can be faulted for anything, it isn’t standing in the way of this deal; it’s for not standing in the way of every deal. Her reasoning is correct; it just needs to be more widely applied.

The post What’s Wrong with St. Louis Economic Development Incentives? Everything appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Kansas City Business Journal reported that the consultant who prepared the study couldn’t show “how much development might have occurred in the absence of all incentives.” This is no small oversight. Kansas City is spending or diverting hundreds of millions of dollars into various development schemes at significant cost to school districts, counties and other basic services. We ought to have some sense of whether this is working. No private sector CEO worth her salt would permit such a significant investment of resources without any idea of the return it was likely to generate.

Worse, the report’s inability to connect investment with return was not a bug; it was intentional. Plenty of organizations, academic and otherwise, have conducted research into this very relationship. In 2016, the St. Louis Development Corporation—the River City’s version of the Kansas City’s Economic Development Corporation—conducted exactly this sort of study and determined that the use of incentives could not be said to drive private investment or create jobs. Incidentally, the company that produced St. Louis’s study, The PFM Group, also submitted a lower bid on the Kansas City project than the vendor the city eventually chose.

A 2018 working paper published by the Upjohn Institute of Employment Research concluded in part, “For at least 75 percent of incented firms, the firm would have made a similar location/expansion/ retention decision without the incentive.” That is a devastating conclusion—and one that is largely supported by research elsewhere. Is Kansas City wasting three out of every four incentive dollars?

Unfortunately, city leaders don’t seem to want to know; the study they commissioned did not even attempt a but-for analysis. City Manager Troy Schulte heralded the study and encouraged developers to make more use of the program. Are we really to believe that every economic development incentive program in Kansas City is a wild success? Really?

The biggest disappointment of the study, as alluded to in the Business Journal’s editorial on the matter, is that the report cannot help policymakers sort good projects from bad. It cannot ensure that future decisions regarding incentives are data-driven. It simply took every bit of economic growth the city has seen and attributed it to the incentives that came before. That is not analysis that encourages better policy. It is political cheerleading, and it is unworthy of the people and policymakers of Kansas City.

The post Kansas City Incentive Study Misses Opportunity appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to National Center for Education Statistics, just under half (46.6%) of aggregate local school district funding comes from states. Forty-five percent comes from local sources, including 36.4 percent from local property taxes. Those local property taxes are the source of much consternation between cities and school districts.

Across the country, municipal economic development policies such as abatement or tax-increment financing (TIF) allow cities to freeze, reduce or redirect property taxes to developers in order to offset the risks of their investment. In short, the practices permit one political body—cities—to divert the funds of another political body—school districts! And the loss of revenue to schools can be in the millions each year. A story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put the cost at $18 million per year for a single district:

The school district relies far more heavily on property taxes, collecting about 61 cents on each tax dollar paid. That means the district, which has little to no say over whether property taxes are abated on real estate projects, missed out on about $18 million in revenue last year.

The Kansas City Public School District (KCPS) estimates that it loses about $26 million each year. Chicago public schools claim a much higher cost to their schools from TIF—as high as $177 million in 2015 alone.

Proponents of these economic development subsidies claim that the funds redirected from schools come only from the increase in property tax—the increment—due to the new development. Without the subsidy, they claim, there would be no new development and so no increase in property tax in the first place. But studies of TIF, such as those conducted on Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City by UNC–Chapel Hill professor William Lester conclude that there is little if any economic development resulting from TIF. Research shows that areas without TIF grow at the same rate as those with TIF—suggesting that TIF itself plays little to no role.

Part of the reason is that one of the standards for determining the appropriateness of TIF subsidies, often called the “but-for test,” is so weak as to be meaningless. The St. Louis Development Corporation (which oversees TIF in St. Louis) issued a report on its own programs in 2016 that found that due to poor quantitative measurement, one “cannot readily determine what may or may not be deemed a project worthy of consideration for a City tax incentive.” But developers have learned how to game the system, and city politicians are often all too willing to oblige so that they can point to new construction as evidence of their political success. Even worse, these developments are often subsidized in already economically vibrant parts of the city—further evidencing the lack of need for a subsidy.

California was the first state to adopt TIF in 1952, but subsequent policies required the state to reimburse school districts for funds lost due to municipal TIF policy. As a result, California became the first state to end TIF in 2012. While states have differing TIF policies, the basic impact on school districts is the same. Tax revenue that would have gone to support education is diverted to subsidize development—development that research suggests may have happened anyway.

Missouri is considering several reforms to its TIF policy, including narrowing the circumstances under which TIF may be used, strengthening the criteria a project must meet in order to qualify for TIF, and requiring any economic impact analysis to be conducted by a third party. Last year the Illinois legislature mandated a study of its TIF policies that is due to be released soon.

Parents and educators are right to look to governors, state legislators and school boards to make sure education funding is sufficient and that the funds are spent wisely. They should also make sure that the new local housing development, shopping mall or office building isn’t being underwritten by funds diverted under the noses of those same political bodies.

The post Cities May Actually Be the Culprit in Underfunding Schools appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Add one more study to that list. This week the Show-Me Institute unveils its own study of TIF in Missouri, specifically in Saint Louis and Kansas City. Authored by T. William Lester and A. Rachid El- Khattabi of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, the study focused on the but-for analyses used in TIF findings; the argument that development would not happen at a particular site without taxpayer subsidies.  According to the authors,

Overall, the analysis conducted in this study finds no support for the claim that TIF generated tangible economic development benefits in either Kansas City or Saint Louis.

Specific to each city studied, the study offers that there is zero—or perhaps even a negative—relationship between TIF and economic development:

In Kansas City, the estimated impact of TIF designation across all categories is very close to zero with relatively small standard errors, which suggests that the TIF program in Kansas City has been ineffective in promoting business development. In Saint Louis, the results are slightly negative and, for the most part, statistically significant.

Policymakers, developers, and many in the media will likely continue to eschew research and point to new buildings as proof of the effectiveness of development subsidies. But the question that studies like this one this answers is not whether development occurs, but whether it would have happened without the subsidy. The roar of research on the matter is deafening—economic development subsidies do not deliver their promised economic benefits.

The full Policy Study, as well as a shorter Policy Brief, are available at the links below.

The post Does Tax-Increment Financing Pass the But-For Test in Missouri? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Using data from 47 cities in 33 states over the course of 26 years (1990 to 2015) the Upjohn study confirmed what Show-Me Institute analysts have been arguing for years: economic development incentives do not grow the economy, create jobs, or boost tax revenue. In his 2017 paper, Upjohn author Tim Bartik concludes (page 116),

The existing research on incentives is that in some cases they can affect business location decisions, but that in many cases they are excessively costly and may not have the promised effects. The new research suggests that much of this consensus is justified.

None of this will surprise frequent readers of this blog. Politicians may like attend ribbon-cuttings and crow about creating jobs, but little of this actually pans out. Instead, cities and states end up hollowing out their tax base, collecting ever less for important services such as public schools, libraries and mental health funds. Simply taxing money out of the economy and then turning around and spending it doesn’t grow the economic pie! The new study confirmed as much:

Incentives are still far too broadly provided to many firms that do not pay high wages, do not provide many jobs, and are unlikely to have research spinoffs. Too many incentives excessively sacrifice the long-term tax base of state and local economies. Too many incentives are refundable and without real budget limits.

The 33 states that Upjohn considered account for 92 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, and the 45 industries it analyzed account for 91 percent of U.S. labor compensation. Kansas City has undertaken its own analysis, of sorts, of its economic development policies, but has hired a trade group of development financiers to do the work. Seriously.

Politicians and those aligned with wealthy developers may not like or care about the research—but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to wave it off and pretend it doesn’t exist.

The post Economic Development Policies Still Failing appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I am surprised there aren’t more skeptics, especially given how poorly the city’s development department, the St. Louis Development Corporation, assessed the Cardinals’ incentive request (despite later endorsing it). The second phase of the Ballpark Village development scored a 24 out of a possible 40 points on the city’s incentive rating system. In other words, the request for incentives received a 60% grade. Nevertheless, the incentive is moving ahead through the approval process.  

Proponents of the project might respond that the city and school district are forecasted to see increased revenues even after accounting for the incentive package, so the subsidy won’t have negative impacts like TIF and abatements have. But this objection misses the mark in two ways. First, the initial phase of Ballpark Village received TIF, so it has already negatively impacted taxing jurisdictions. Secondly, the revenues for the $16 million will be generated by a kind of special sales tax district known as a community improvement district (CID). That means ordinary folks like you and me—consumers—are going to pay extra taxes so that the city doesn’t take a financial hit . . .  and the Cardinals don’t take a financial hit. But who should public policy be crafted for: the government, wealthy corporations, or the people?

As the incentive proposal moves through the legislative process, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen should weigh the costs and benefits of subsiding yet another pie-in-the-sky, “transformative” development. The research tells us these incentives don’t boost the economy. Why don’t city aldermen pay attention to their own Development Department’s ratings?

The post When Scoring a 60% gets you $16 Million appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A recent study commissioned by the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) found that the lack of aggregate information available from developers has made analysis of projects difficult. The study was intended to measure the impact subsidies have had on job creation, but the researchers found that no data was available regarding payroll information. The SLDC subsequently recommended additional reporting from incentive recipients.

Currently, municipalities must submit project details to the Missouri Department of Revenue every year or face losing TIF privileges, but municipalities get their information directly from developers (who self-report), and often reports are incomplete or inaccurate.  In a few cases, such as the construction of a seven-story multi-use building on Tucker Blvd., developers have even listed their anticipated project costs at $0! (see “Nadira’s Place”).

Inaccurate reporting is also an obstacle to accountability, allowing developers to receive taxpayer dollars without being held to the promises they made regarding job creation. When projects fail, there are no consequences. Worse yet, without information about what (or how badly) things went wrong, we can’t learn from the failure and be more selective about future subsidies.

Increased accountability would not limit the use of subsidies where they may be appropriate, but it could help us make better decisions about how they should be used. The SLDC report contains several policy proposals, including the use of “claw back” provisions that would require developers to pay back money they received as incentive for developments that failed to produce their promised job-creation or revitalization outcomes. Given that the story of development subsidies in Saint Louis has hardly been a tale of rousing success, area leaders would do well to take note of the SLDC report and consider its recommendations.

The post Subsidies in St. Louis, Part 4: Accountability and Clawbacks appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The recently released St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) incentive report casts doubt on those claims. Incentives, the report concludes, provide little or no economic development benefits. They may help put up shiny new buildings, but they don’t genuinely boost Saint Louis’s economic health.

This is what the research tells us:

There is little or no connection between the use of incentives and job growth. Although proponents claim TIF will help bring jobs to the area, there is almost no connection between increased employment and TIF. For every $1 million of TIF invested, there are only seven associated jobs (p. 95). And the few construction-related jobs created by TIF have huge costs. In 2015, each job created by TIF in St. Louis cost taxpayers more than $53,000.

But it gets more disturbing. According to Missouri’s annual TIF report, even when controlling for developments less than 5 years old, less than 35% of projected jobs listed in developers’ proposals have actually been created or retained by TIF projects in St. Louis. And because TIF job creation figures are self-reported and unaudited—it’s possible that even the 35% number is overstated.

TIF does not help rejuvenate neighborhoods or spark further investment. When researchers looked at neighborhoods with incentive-driven development, they found that only the parcels that receive incentives increase in value. The SLDC report found zero evidence that a statistically significant increase in property values can be attributed to the effect of TIF-spurred development. The neighborhoods surrounding TIF projects are no more likely than unincentivized areas to see other large investments without incentives. In short, so-called “anchor developments” provide no real benefit to their neighborhoods.

The researchers concluded that, “[w]hile there may be disagreement about the value of some packages, it is clear that the City gains no net benefit from an extremely costly program with no real economic development impact” (p. 6, my emphasis). Along the most important measures of success—job creation and neighborhood revitalization—incentives appear to fail, making it hard to justify continuing to spend tens of millions of dollars each year subsidizing development projects.

(Read part 1 in the series here)

The post Subsidies in St. Louis, Part 2: Economic Development Blunders appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report is a great example of ridiculous government claims. I took the time to add up all the “jobs created” claims for each of the various subsidies on pages 6 and 7. The report claims that the work of the SLDC and its various subsidies (TIF, etc.) will result in 18,198 new jobs. If I added in their “jobs retained” or “construction job” claims, it would be even higher.

Let me give you an idea of how completely bogus these claims are. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the entire Saint Louis metropolitan region only added 13,500 jobs in the year from July 2012 to July 2013. That is ALL job creation in our entire 2.5 million-person metro area. Yet the SLDC is claiming its actions in 2013, which only reflect subsidized jobs within the city of Saint Louis, will create more than 18,000 jobs. (To be clear, they are not claiming all the jobs came in 2013 or just within one year.)

These stats bring to mind the comments of economist Dick Netzer when presented with preposterous claims of success by economic development officials (p. 134):

“Who needs oil wells, when a state can be another Kuwait just by increasing the budget of a tiny agency?”

Let me repeat this. This city’s economic development arm (which is now combined with the county, but these stats are city-only) is claiming that the projects they are subsidizing in 2013 will produce almost 5,000 more jobs than the compilers of economic data at the BLS say were created in our entire region by all types of job growth during approximately the same period. (I recognize there is some gross vs. net difference here, but the claims are so entirely out of whack that it does not really matter. I’ll explain further in comments if anyone wants me to.)

A state audit found that the Missouri Quality Jobs Program has claimed to generate almost 27,000 jobs, but in fact had generated slightly more than 7,000. This is the same basic thing. These numbers from the SLDC should be taken with the same grains of salt (and subsidized salt, at that).

The idea that governments should be empowered to take other people’s money to support government-sanctioned, targeted business investments is absurd. Their evidence of government success is, too often, simply made up.

The post St. Louis Development Corporation Just Making Stuff Up appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Consider 4634 Cottage Ave., pictured below in August 2010. Until 1999, it was in private ownership following its construction in 1906. A sign reading “Private Property NO TRESPASSING” hangs ironically on one of the building’s boarded door openings, a vestige of the structure’s past life as an income-producing property.

Today, the multi-family dwelling is in a perpetual state of decay because of its status a property owned by the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA).

Private owners in a free market have vastly different incentives than do government agencies to ensure the health and vibrancy of assets under their control.

This month’s meeting of the LRA Commission will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 8:30 a.m. in the board room of St. Louis Development Corporation, on the 12th floor of 1015 Locust St. in downtown St. Louis.

The post Suffocating Neighborhoods, Parcel by Parcel appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In July, the city of St. Louis’s Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) Board of Commissioners heard public testimony from six persons seeking to purchase property, and the board actually approved three of the sales! (Commissioners deferred action on one of the properties and offered a five-year “garden lease” on each of the other two parcels subject to public testimony.) Per its usual practice, the LRA sent buyers off with the encouragement that they “will receive a letter in the mail” enumerating their required next steps for taking title to the city-owned properties.

All other agenda items received their recommended actions.

The above may seem like nothing more than minutiae to persons unfamiliar with the problems associated with LRA ownership of formerly private lands, but for persons who live next door to any of the LRA’s thousands of parcels in the city or for taxpayers anywhere in the city, the above actions are of particular significance.

One person who testified this month seeking to purchase a vacant lot adjacent to her home spoke of how burglaries are “a constant problem,” and that she hoped the acquisition of the lot would allow her to better protect her property. Another potential purchaser expressed her desire to become a homeowner, only to be rebuffed by the commission with an admonishment that she “talk to the alderman,” demonstrate stronger financial abilities, and await further review by the commission at the next meeting. A husband and wife expressed their desire to purchase the lot adjacent to their home in order to provide space for room additions to accommodate their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. Two representatives from a church spoke about how the purchase of a fenced parking lot would greatly assist in the church’s programming and outreach.

Considered together, the myriad of motivations and the multitude of proposed uses for LRA-owned land parcels suggest to me that individuals, when free to conduct land transfers, make better decisions about land use than do any seemingly well-intentioned bureaucrats on an executive commission.

The LRA meets in the Board Room at St. Louis Development Corporation, 1015 Locust Street, Suite 1200, at 8:30 a.m. on the last Wednesday of each month.

The post Individuals Make Better Decisions About Land Use Than Do Government Commissions, So Why Won’t the LRA Sell? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.