In reply to Bill Siegel.

I think a lot of people's frustration with TIF in Saint Paul (at least in my neighborhood) comes with projects like the Allianz Stadium.

Allianz stadium's benefit/non-benefit is still yet to be determined, as we have yet to see if the tax free stadium will create a glut of new housing development around the stadium to make up for the tax free stadium.

All that said: I think people are very reasonably scared that the city and city planners alike aren't planning for the people of the neighborhood, they are planning for the economy of the city. If we are talking about the global economic health of the city, then it's easy to think in broad terms and forget that artificially adding a great deal of housing stock into an already dense neighborhood without any economic checks such as:
* A Minimum wage that is a living wage
* Rent Control (in any way)
* Licensing on Landlords
can drive up the cost of the housing within a neighborhood even if it drives down the cost of housing within a city.

So realistically, the new stadium supported by tiff funding might keep housing cheaper in in Saint Paul globally while driving up the cost of housing in the neighborhoods surrounding the stadium as landlords can just charge whatever the average is for the neighborhood which will go up if a bunch of luxury housing goes in overnight.

For me, that's a net loss as the neighborhoods surrounding the stadium both a) have to deal with a stadium now and all the drunk soccer fans around it and b) still don't have any protection against landlords raising the rent to match the price of the market rate apartments going in around the stupid stadium and everyone is about the get evicted.

So without substantial protections in place for working people, it's hard for me to celebrate TIF as it seems like gasoline for developers. And that is great for development, but I think it can really leave a lot of folks behind whose wages haven't increased in years.