TIF in Illinois: what is required?
Illinois TIF Statute describes conditions required in broad and ambiguous language.
Here's what is required to make a TIF District:
- Must be within a municipality.
- "Blight" or "danger of blight" must be declared.
- Development "would not occur 'but-for TIF" ".
- City or Village officials must vote yes.
- Public notice must be provided and public comment must be allowed.
In Illinois, TIFs are formed on poshy golf courses, cornfields, and the most expensive areas of downtown Chicago. To paraphrase the old saying that 'a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich ': an Illinois Mayor could get an ortolan amuse-bouche declared blighted.
"But-for" is useless without formulaic definition. Knowing that in Illinois, with its property tax rates 200% to 500% of national average, developers always expect and receive TIF grants, "but-for' is a meaningless concept.
Public comments...in the immortal words of Henry Higgins : "She will beg you for advice, your reply will be concise
And she'll listen very nicely,
and then go out and do precisely
what she wants…"