In the few years since the Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) movement splashed on the scene in cities across the United States, the YIMBY mantra has been persistent: Clear away the regulatory barriers and let developers build more housing. The laws of supply and demand will take over, their argument goes, and ultimately prices will go down. But the backlash against the YIMBY movement has been strong, as community activists have warned that increased development actually makes things worse. They worry, with some evidence, that the zoning changes YIMBYs are advocating for only accelerate gentrification and displacement—disproportionally harming low-income families and communities of color.

Those concerns were enough to derail YIMBY-sponsored legislation in California last year that would have fast-tracked multifamily housing production around transit stations. Coalitions of low-income families and social justice advocates, in increasingly harsh terms, denounced the pro-growth approach and proclaimed that in some transitioning neighborhoods, it might be better to halt new building altogether.

The controversy roiled further as critics of the YIMBY movement asserted that it skews too young and white to effectively understand or address the housing-related realities faced by residents of neighborhoods in transition.  Meanwhile, research has cast doubts on the very premise that the market can solve the affordability challenge.

In the midst of this messy situation, a potential compromise has begun to emerge thanks to forward-looking policy makers: Increasingly, cities are formalizing the requirement that new residential development include a percentage of affordable homes, the policy known as inclusionary housing. The principles of land value capture form the foundation of such mandates for affordability, which allow the public to recover some of the increased property value enjoyed by landowners as the result of government actions like rezoning.

“[Upzoning] generates a lot of value. There’s widespread agreement on that,” said Rick Jacobus, principal at Street Level Advisors in Oakland, California, who wrote Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities for the Lincoln Institute (Jacobus 2015). With affordability requirements, he says, communities “can recover that value and put it to work for the public, and benefit the people who would not otherwise be the beneficiaries of real estate development—and indeed have suffered from it in the past.”

This reframing of the urban development paradigm—the notion that when government clears the way for more building, the public can expect something in return—has become the basis for fledgling coalitions from Seattle to Minneapolis and beyond. Some in the YIMBY movement still view inclusionary housing requirements as another barrier that gets in the way of increased housing supply. But others say this new way of looking at the relationship among builders, government, and neighborhoods may be the key to breaking the deadlock—and that it could be one more step toward building cities that are livable for all.

Born of Backlash

In high-cost cities from Seattle to Boston, the housing affordability crisis is extending its reach to the point where even middle- and higher-income people are getting priced out. As a result, political energy is spreading beyond longstanding advocates for affordable housing to include new stakeholders, many of whom are focused on zoning and other regulatory barriers to development. These are the people who have organized under the banner of Yes in My Backyard, or YIMBY. It’s a counterforce to those who oppose development in their neighborhoods—a mindset, if not quite an organized movement, long known as Not in My Backyard, or NIMBY.

The YIMBY movement has roots in Europe and Canada, and arguably first gained momentum in the United States in San Francisco, as millennials and those in the burgeoning tech industry became frustrated with the lack of new housing supply. The YIMBYs received national attention last year with a bill—written by a California YIMBY group and backed by Silicon Valley money—that would have required cities to allow denser development near transit, regardless of local zoning.

Though now facing pushback, the YIMBY movement was itself born of backlash. Ever since cities across the country started making a comeback in the 1980s, infill redevelopment in established urban neighborhoods has been stymied by outdated zoning and codes, Byzantine regulations, onerous requirements such as extensive off-street parking, and so-called exclusionary zoning that favors large lots and discourages multifamily housing. YIMBYism arose in large part out of frustration with neighborhoods saying no to new housing supply.

Established residents of every political persuasion have often been stubbornly resistant to change in their midst, embracing the regulatory barriers—all the hoops developers had to jump through—as much-needed protection. “They’re worried about their views, traffic, parking, and a new demographic coming into their community,” said Mary Lydon, a housing consultant in San Diego, where Mayor Kevin Faulconer recently announced he wants to be the first YIMBY mayor. At the mere proposal of increased density along transit corridors, she said, people “become unglued.”

Economists and land policy scholars have thoroughly documented the NIMBY dynamic. William Fischel at Dartmouth College, author of The Homevoter Hypothesis (Fischel 2001) and Zoning Rules! (Fischel 2015) showed that concern about individual property values was driving much of the resistance to further growth. In Triumph of the City and numerous papers, Harvard University professor Edward Glaeser illustrates how land use regulations, exclusionary zoning, and even historic preservation are hobbling urban economies because there isn’t enough housing available for workers (Glaeser 2011).

Research on four booming cities in Texas—Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin—indicates that Austin’s housing got more expensive more quickly than in the other metro areas.  The distinguishing factor was that Austin, by comparison, had more extensive regulations and permitting requirements that either discouraged density or led to long construction delays (Shannon 2015).

Add more housing, the YIMBY advocates claimed, and the demand for that product will get absorbed, leading prices to drop—a basic rule of economics. Even new luxury housing could have a salutary effect, they argued, in a process known as “filtering”: wealthier residents moving into a new penthouse downtown free up the aging townhouse in outlying neighborhoods, which in turn liberates a triple-decker down the street that will command lower rents.

The mantra to build, build, build has also been buttressed by an environmental argument: that cities have an obligation to cluster height and density at transit stations, to cut down on carbon emissions. The combination of climate change and the affordability crisis amounts to a national emergency, said Dan Bertolet, senior researcher at the Sightline Institute in Seattle, a research organization promoting environment and equity in the Pacific Northwest.

“We need to focus on the big picture: cities like Seattle need to add as much housing as [they can] as fast as possible. People seem to get hung up somehow on the fairness of that … that landowners and developers are bathing in gold coins,” he said. The wave of tech jobs in such cities should be seen as a “gift,” he said, that will ultimately boost the entire city.

“Developers build, supply increases, prices start to roll off—they are right now in Seattle, rents are down—and then developers stop because they can’t make money anymore. City governments should lower all the regulatory costs and all the things they can control, so developers will keep going, and lower the baseline rent as much as possible, before they stop,” Bertolet said.

“People say building all this supply won’t solve the [affordability] problem, and that’s true,” he said, noting that low-income families will still need subsidies and forms of public housing. “But if you build as much as you can, you make the leftover subsidy problem smaller. Who wouldn’t want to do that? We all know public housing is hugely expensive to build.”

The California Experiment

For all its apparent logic, the YIMBY movement was dealt a serious setback last year, when the California legislation fast-tracking density at transit stations, SB827 by San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener, died in committee. Traditional housing affordability advocates concerned about gentrification and displacement formally parted ways with the cause for increasing supply. YIMBY advocates were accused of not understanding real estate realities on the ground, particularly in communities of color.

The basic problem was that the legislation did nothing to counteract historical patterns of racialized displacement and dispossession by real estate investment capital, University of Southern California urban studies professor Lisa Schweitzer wrote on her blog during the fractious debate. The growing perception was that the California measure gave the green light to developers without addressing equity concerns. The San Francisco Planning Department noted drily that SB827 would provide “huge additional value to property owners throughout the state, without concurrent value capture.” On the Crenshaw Subway Coalition’s website, Damien Goodmon was more forthright, describing the legislation as “a declaration of war on South LA.”

The political disintegration in California augured much more acrimony to come. A flier in Oakland called for “autonomous action/creative intervention/sabotage” against a scheduled gathering of the “pro-gentrification YIMBY party” descending on the community “to plot our total destruction.” In the fall of last year, when YIMBY organizers chose the Roxbury section of Boston—a neighborhood facing intense gentrification pressure and rising prices—as the site for their national conference, called YIMBYtown, a coalition of local social justice groups organized a protest under the banner Homes for All. Bearing spools of caution tape imprinted with the words “No Displacement Zone,” they interrupted the closing plenary, which featured a speaker from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

“We believe the people closest to the pain are people who have the answers,” said Armani White, a Roxbury resident working with a group called Reclaim Roxbury.

Hallah Elbeleidy, policy analyst of Urban Programs at the Lincoln Institute, helped organize the YIMBYtown conference as a volunteer and focused on offering a program that featured critical and different viewpoints. The protest led to some soul-searching within local YIMBY and YIMBY-aligned organizations, she said, but didn’t necessarily lead to meaningful change. “Those they declare to want as neighbors aren’t represented in their organizations in a meaningful way, nor in the neighborhoods in which they reside,” says Elbeleidy. “While there are some uncontrollable factors at play, YIMBY advocates must examine and respond to how far from these individuals they really are, and not just spatially.”

Reflecting on the experience of being the subject of protests and the discomfort these very necessary conversations can bring, Elbeleidy penned an essay titled “Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable” in Planning magazine (Elbeleidy 2019). In the piece, which was published in January, she urges greater collaboration among housing advocates: “We cannot accept a siloed approach to a problem fundamentally relevant to every individual.”

Examining the Premise

One of the most potent arguments in the backlash against the YIMBY movement is that its basic premise is all wrong. “We’re challenging YIMBYs to stop promoting the myth that the market can solve the affordability and displacement crisis,” said Lori Hurlebaus of Dorchester Not for Sale, during the Roxbury protest.

Well-established research shows that excessive regulations, exclusionary zoning, and NIMBYism can lead to higher prices. But there is little definitive evidence in the current literature that removing barriers and adopting upzoning brings prices down.

Some studies use econometric modeling and survey data that shore up the YIMBY argument. In The Long Term Dynamics of Affordable Rental Housing, researchers at the Hudson Institute and Econometrica Inc. found that from 1985 to 2013, nearly half of rentals affordable to low-income families existed previously as homes owned or rented by higher-income residents (Weicher 2017). Stuart Rosenthal at Syracuse University estimated that this filtering occurred over roughly the same time period at a steady rate of 2.5 percent per year (Rosenthal 2014).

If new housing isn’t built, wealthy newcomers have no choice but to bid on existing homes, driving up prices and derailing the filtering process, said New York University professor Roderick M. Hills, Jr. In this view, it would defy the laws of economic gravity to assert that building more supply somehow exacerbates affordability problems. “Attributing rent increases to new market-rate housing is like attributing rainstorms to umbrellas,” Hills wrote.

Other studies, however, suggest that what’s actually happening on the ground is far more complicated. An extensive review by New York University’s Furman Center found that, “from both theory and empirical evidence . . . adding new homes moderates price increases and therefore makes housing more affordable to low- and moderate-income families.” But the study also quickly emphasized that “new market-rate housing is necessary but not sufficient, and that government intervention is critical to ensure that supply is added at prices affordable to a range of incomes” (Been 2018).

A 2018 Federal Reserve paper by Elliot Anenberg and Edward Kung confirmed that housing demand has low elasticity—meaning essentially that consumers continue to pay higher prices despite increases in supply—and that rents may be more determined by the amenities in desirable or transitioning neighborhoods (Anenberg 2018). The implication is that even if a city were able to ease some supply constraints to achieve a marginal increase in its housing stock, that city would not experience a meaningful reduction in rental burdens.

In some cases, neighborhoods that are targeted for zoning reforms allowing greater height and density see prices rise very quickly—before a single foundation is poured. That was the conclusion of an MIT study published in January 2019 in Urban Affairs Review, looking at land parcels and condominiums in catchment areas around transit stations in Chicago that had been rezoned for taller and denser buildings (Freemark 2019). An important caveat was that there was a lag in permitting and construction of new projects—so supply wasn’t actually increased. But because the city signaled that density would increase, the research concluded that the “short-term, local-level impacts of upzoning are higher property prices.”

Even if the massive introduction of supply eventually has a moderating effect, the urgency of the housing crisis is that there’s no tomorrow. “Unfortunately, those facing pressures from increasing prices don’t have the luxury of time—they can’t pay the difference and wait for a better deal down the line,” said Elbeleidy.

Cities Move Forward

While this battle plays out, policy makers and housing advocates are making adjustments on the ground. Many are tying upzoning to affordability requirements such as inclusionary housing, where new residential development must include a percentage of affordable homes—typically 10 to 15 percent as a baseline—or funding so that the same amount of affordable homes can be built elsewhere in the community. Many cities are changing this policy from voluntary to mandatory. In California, lawmakers have worked with critics to redraft the density bill with statewide affordability requirements, as well as other protections for renters. The legislation also delays implementation for five years in neighborhoods most threatened by displacement.

In Minneapolis, the scene of extensive policy innovations around housing, the city laid the groundwork for increasing supply by easing restrictions in the downtown area, legalizing accessory dwelling units, and banning single-family-only zoning, to encourage more multifamily development. All of that was swiftly followed by a minimum inclusionary requirement of 10 percent for any project that gets increased allowable size, measured as floor-area ratio.

“This city council isn’t going to upzone without that policy,” said council president Lisa Bender. Even if it’s not discussed on a daily basis, the concept of value capture provided a critical rationale for that reciprocity, she said. “We have made it easier to develop. We have given lots of benefits to developers—we’ve eliminated parking requirements, we have an amazing park system, streets, transit—all kinds of investments that are creating a private benefit. And affordable housing isn’t the only way we ask for some of that benefit back. We have a fee to help pay for the park system.” That message—that taxpayers are constantly providing things that increase value for private landowners and developers—is hugely important, she said.

While expectations have permanently shifted, the city is constantly monitoring projects to make sure developers don’t end up with undue burdens. One additional measure being studied is allowing the use of tax increment financing as a supplement to the inclusionary requirement—additional funding that could potentially double the number of affordable units from 10 to 20 percent.

“I think we’re at a point in Minneapolis where we have a pro-growth, pro-equity political coalition,” Bender said. “Increasing supply is a necessary part of housing stability, but we insist that growth should help close our race and equity gaps, which are among the worst in the country.”

Inclusionary housing requirements are either in place or on the way in other cities as well. Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability program, for example, essentially now establishes a formula: if certain parts of town are upzoned, or projects get to be denser, larger, and taller, the obligation to supply affordable housing increases concomitantly. A few other examples:

• In Honolulu, a new rail line will boost private land values along its route. As such, the affordability requirements in Hawaii are seen as neither a gift by developers nor an extra charge—but rather, the recovery of a portion of the taxpayer-funded infrastructure project that is creating large increases in value for the private sector. “The public has invested billions of dollars into rail. That is increasing the property values around rail stations, and allowing people to build higher and more densely. That is all worth a lot and we need to get back some of our public investment by building more affordable housing,” said Gavin Thornton, co-executive director of the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.
• In San Diego, the multipronged approach includes removing height restrictions and minimum parking requirements, an unlimited density bonus for any project that includes affordable housing, a 10 percent inclusionary standard, and by-right zoning approval for affordable housing and housing for the homeless. A plan to vastly increase allowable height and density along a new transit corridor is set to be accompanied by the provision of land near stations owned by the regional transit agency.
• Vancouver, B.C., is divided up into six districts that determine contributions by developers, known as Community Amenity Contributions and Development Cost Levies, based on the rezoning in each area. A measure to allow more duplexes, for example, triggers a calibrated affordability requirement. The system was designed to improve transparency, and it also has the effect of taking the mystery out of what developers can or can’t afford.

“There is understandable distrust of developers—those who have benefitted from the housing crisis. Well-designed land value capture policies serve to counter some of those fears,” said Vancouver City Councilor Christine Boyle. In what is increasingly becoming a common refrain, Boyle said she would prefer a citywide land value tax, which would fully match the realities of how landowners and developers are currently making profits. Boyle, a United Church minister, pitched the idea during her campaign, and gave it a catchy label: Windfall Power.

A New Framework

Despite this embrace of inclusionary requirements, complaints persist that they are never enough—that if cities require 15 percent of new residential development, the number of affordable homes will never catch up to the number of market-rate homes.

“Everybody recognizes it’s not enough, and it should never be the only thing, but inclusionary housing is an important source of affordable housing,” said Jacobus of Street Level Advisors. There is no question, he said, that the details of implementation are reliably complicated, and that changing the required percentage of affordable homes can be at odds with making the policy predictable.

But once landowners, in particular, realize that inclusionary requirements will be part of the equation from the start, the policy becomes an accepted and standard component of the urban development process, he said. With that as a basic foundation, policy makers can turn to other measures and initiatives, in a bundling of actions for affordability—strengthened tenants protections, co-housing and shared equity housing, tax increment financing for affordable housing, and reforms to allow accessory dwelling units, tiny houses, and single-room occupancy or rooming houses, just to name a few.

Given the high price of urban land, which makes housing so expensive, many cities are supplementing inclusionary requirements with direct actions such as providing government-owned land for affordable housing. Sound Transit, the Seattle area’s regional transportation authority, has made it a policy to do just that, handing over parking lots and construction staging areas next to existing and new light rail stations.

A mix of carrots and sticks is increasingly part of the effort to push cities and towns to plan for adequate housing. Courts in New Jersey have for decades enforced the state’s “fair share” housing laws, stemming from the landmark Mount Laurel decisions. In Massachusetts, under Chapter 40-B, housing gets fast-tracked if municipalities fail to maintain at least 10 percent of their housing stock as affordable to those earning 80 percent of median area income.

And some politicians are getting tougher. Mayor Martin Walsh has endorsed a special tax on the penthouses and other luxury homes that are increasingly dominating the landscape in Boston. California Governor Gavin Newsom, formerly the mayor of San Francisco, coupled $2 billion in new funding for housing and homelessness initiatives with a proposal to punish communities that block home building by withholding other state funding.

Randy Shaw, a leader of the YIMBY cause and author of Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America (Shaw 2018), said he would take such tough measures a step further—by charging residents who block multifamily housing for the value they are accruing by maintaining the status quo.

“Homeowners increasing their own values are profiting by artificially restricting development,” said Shaw, who is director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, a pro-tenants group. “We act as if there’s no economic impact of anti-apartment policies. They increase the price for everybody else, and in terms of equity, it’s a staggering amount of money that homeowners are gaining.”

In contrast, linking upzoning to affordability requirements stands to be a more feasible and politically acceptable step, as a theoretical basis for the YIMBY movement. Changing the framework for urban development across the country can also smooth out highly charged neighborhood politics.

“I think the world is a better place for them being around,” said Jacobus of YIMBY advocates. “I just want them to be more concerned about what these communities are concerned about.”

Clashes like the protest of YIMBYtown in Roxbury are “totally avoidable,” he said. “Both sides are fighting an uphill battle, and there’s no good reason to be on opposite sides. It’s not going to be right to not build at all.”

If nothing else, YIMBYs might embrace affordability requirements as part of a better communications campaign. “It changes the way voters respond to a new development, even though everybody recognizes it’s not enough,” Jacobus said. “Lecturing people about supply and demand doesn’t work. What would it take to make people think they’re part of the solution? If we’re all going to row in the same direction, we have to all think there’s something in it for everyone.”

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Photograph: Members of the YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) movement at a rally for failed California housing bill SB 827 in 2018. The bill has been redrafted to include statewide affordability requirements and other protections for renters. Credit: Jef Poskanzer/Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0 

References

Anenberg, Elliot, and Edward Kung. 2018. “Can More Housing Supply Solve the Affordability Crisis? Evidence from a Neighborhood Choice Model.” Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-035. Washington, DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. https://doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2018.035.

Been, Vicki, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Katherine O’Regan. 2018. “Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability.” Working paper. New York, NY: NYU Furman Center (November). http://furmancenter.org/research/publication/supply-skepticismnbsp-housing-supply-and-affordability.

Beyer, Scott. 2016. “Why Is Austin’s Housing More Expensive Than Other Texas Cities?” Forbes, August 31, 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/31/why-is-austins-housing-more-expensive-than-other-texas-cities/#3b7f37ce6121.

Elbeleidy, Hallah. 2019. “Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable.” Planning, January 2019. https://www.planning.org/login/?next=/planning/2019/jan/viewpoint/.

Fischel, William A. 2005. The Homevoter Hypothesis: How Home Values Influence Local Government Taxation, School Finance, and Land-Use Policies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

–––. 2015. Zoning Rules! The Economics of Land Use Regulation. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Freemark, Yonah. “Upzoning Chicago: Impacts of a Zoning Reform on Property Values and Housing Construction.” Urban Affairs Review, prepublished January 29, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087418824672.

Glaeser, Edward. 2011. Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York, NY: Penguin Press.

Hills, Roderick M. 2018. “Why Do So Many Affordable-Housing Advocates Reject the Law of Supply and Demand?” The Washington Post, September 18, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/18/why-do-so-many-affordable-housing-advocates-reject-law-supply-demand/.

Jacobus, Rick. 2015. Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities. Policy focus report. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Rosenthal, Stuart A. 2014. “Are Private Markets and Filtering a Viable Source of Low-Income Housing? Estimates from a ‘Repeat Income’ Model.” American Economic Review 104, no. 2: 687-706. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42920713?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

San Francisco Planning Department. 2018. “Memo on SB 827.” February 5, 2018. http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/SB%20827.pdf.

Shannon, Megan Elizabeth. 2015. “Quantifying the Impacts of Regulatory Delay on Housing Affordability and Quality in Austin, Texas.” Master’s thesis, The University of Texas at Austin. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/32194.

Weicher, John C., Frederick J. Eggers, and Fouad Moumen. 2017. “The Long-Term Dynamics of Affordable Rental Housing.” Washington, DC: Hudson Institute (September 15). https://www.hudson.org/research/13339-the-long-term-dynamics-of-affordab….

For years, the City of San Bernardino, California, worked with the county housing authority, a nonprofit affordable housing developer called National CORE, and community residents to develop a plan to replace Waterman Gardens—an aging 252-unit public housing complex in desperate need of repair—with high-quality affordable housing. They launched the Arrowhead Grove Neighborhood Revitalization plan, a 38-acre, mixed-income housing project that is expected to create approximately 400 units of affordable and market-rate housing over the course of a decade.

Affordable housing is desperately needed in San Bernardino, a city with high housing costs and limited incomes that make it difficult for residents to afford basic necessities. More than 30 percent of San Bernardino residents live below the poverty level, and nearly 70 percent of renters are housing burdened, paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing, according to the National Equity Atlas, a resource produced by PolicyLink and the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity.

In 2017, the Arrowhead Grove project opened 138 units of affordable housing. However, due to a lack of subsidies to pay for the development of additional affordable units, the next phases of the project stalled.

What would it take to complete this transformative project in one of San Bernardino’s core neighborhoods? Could a health system help overcome barriers to development?

‘A Responsibility to Help Our Neighbors’

Dignity Health, one of the largest health systems in the United States, is exploring the roles that hospitals and health systems can play in creating local systems that produce jobs, housing, transit, and other resources people need to lead a healthy life. It’s also one of eight hospitals and health systems participating in an initiative from the Center for Community Investment (CCI) called Accelerating Investments for Healthy Communities. Over the past year, a cross-disciplinary team from Dignity Health engaged in a series of learning labs where they mapped the community investment system in San Bernardino to clarify local priorities, identify partners, and begin designing interventions to improve the system. The community investment system works to mobilize capital to address community priorities in disinvested places. It includes a broad set of stakeholders—from community development financial institutions (CDFIs), affordable housing developers, mission-driven investors, and banks, to community leaders, policy makers, public officials, anchor institutions, and local residents—who care about the community, the different types of resources that are blended to finance projects that conventional markets ignore, and the policies and practices that govern how this work is accomplished. Dignity Health also made the case for more investment in affordable housing.

Through these exercises, the Arrowhead Grove Neighborhood Revitalization project emerged as an important focus of the team’s work. As a major project in a neighborhood burdened by crime and poor health outcomes, Arrowhead Grove had the potential to bring new groups to the table, have a catalytic impact on the local community investment system, and set the stage for future investment from the health system and others in San Bernardino.

“We have a responsibility to help our neighbors when they need us. We recognized the importance of the Arrowhead Grove revitalization effort but needed help understanding the best way to align resources,” said Dan Murphy, vice president and chief philanthropy officer for Dignity Health Foundation-Inland Empire. “We needed our partners to help us determine the best path forward.”

Dignity Health has a longstanding tradition of lending to affordable housing developers and CDFIs through its Community Investment Program. Seeing the need and potential of the Arrowhead Grove project, the program committed a $1.2 million bridge loan to help fill its funding gap.

Additionally, Dignity Health saw the potential to play a larger role in the local community investment system, recognizing that in the wake of San Bernardino’s recent emergence from bankruptcy, it would take more than local resources to overcome disinvestment and improve opportunity for all residents.

“As a large employer and anchor, we understand that investing in projects like Arrowhead Grove can help bring stability to San Bernardino neighborhoods and transform lives,” said Pablo Bravo Vial, vice president of community health at Dignity Health.

In June of 2018, Dignity Health invited a diverse group of stakeholders from San Bernardino, the Inland Empire, and the greater Los Angeles region, as well as statewide and national organizations—including municipal leaders, foundations, banks, CDFIs, developers, and community-based organizations—to come together. Nearly 50 individuals and organizations attended the meeting and the site visit that followed, where Dignity Health articulated a compelling narrative about the need for more investment in the city; positioned Arrowhead Grove as a clear and immediate opportunity for public, private, and philanthropic capital; and asked participants to join in making the project a success.

One of the entities in attendance was the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC), a cabinet-level committee responsible for coordinating the activities of state agencies to promote more equitable, sustainable, and resilient communities. SGC had previously been aware of the Arrowhead Grove project and the long-standing need for affordable housing in San Bernardino. Impressed by the collaboration among local partners and a strong application by National CORE, SGC awarded San Bernardino $20 million through California’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program. The funds will support the next two phases of the Arrowhead Grove project, adding more than 180 new units of affordable housing. San Bernardino is the first city in the Inland Empire region to receive AHSC funding.

Across the country, rising income inequality, aging infrastructure, health disparities, and climate change threaten people’s ability to lead a healthy and productive life. And, far too often, the community investment system lacks the capacity to produce the level and type of investment needed to improve these conditions.

CCI has observed over and over again that “resources follow coherence.” By identifying a clear community priority and stepping forward to bring in new partners, Dignity Health was able to unstick a major catalytic project. SGC’s funding for Arrowhead Grove illustrates how clear priorities and collaboration can help attract new resources to a system and deliver investments that align with community priorities and support community health.

This article originally appeared in Shelterforce Magazine.

Photograph Credit: National Community Renaissance

Molly Metzger no planeaba convertirse en experta en financiamiento por incremento impositivo (TIF), y mucho menos liderar un grupo de ciudadanos enfocado en ese asunto. Pero cuando el conflicto racial de su St. Louis natal tuvo un receso abrupto debido al conocido asesinato de Michael Brown en Ferguson, cerca de allí, se sintió obligada a entrar en acción.

Metzger es experta en desigualdades en viviendas y desarrollo económico, y le molestaba cada vez más el hecho de que las políticas de uso del suelo, que durante mucho tiempo se habían promocionado por su capacidad de impulsar el desarrollo y crear oportunidades económicas en los vecindarios desatendidos, no lograban ninguno de estos objetivos. Cuanto más se interiorizaba, más notaba que el TIF (que adelanta futura renta por impuesto inmobiliario para acelerar proyectos seleccionados) parecía beneficiar a los vecindarios que ya se estaban aburguesando, y se malversaban fondos que deberían haberse invertido en escuelas públicas.

“Casi nadie quiere dedicar su tiempo libre a aprender sobre un tema tan retorcido”, dice Metzger, quien es profesora en Brown School of Social Work (Escuela Brown de Trabajo Social), de la Universidad de Washington en St. Louis. “Pero lo que preguntamos hoy es si deberíamos frenar un poco. Si seguimos incentivando todo, no se beneficia a toda la ciudad, y no se está formando una base imponible. Es como muchos asuntos de política: solo se beneficia una pequeña cantidad de gente”. Metzger colaboró en la creación de un grupo llamado Team TIF, que vigila el modo en que la ciudad usa este mecanismo de financiación pública. Hasta ahora, el grupo organizó reuniones públicas y creó material informativo para concientizar al público.

Team TIF es un ejemplo del escrutinio que se realiza del TIF últimamente. Los dirigentes municipales dicen que el TIF es una de las herramientas más importantes que tienen para regenerar áreas urbanas, en especial en las antiguas ciudades postindustriales. Y lo han adoptado desde que se estableció, en la década de 1950: hoy, Estados Unidos tiene, al menos, 10.000 distritos con TIF en 49 estados (Merriman et al. 2018). Pero los críticos dicen que el TIF se convirtió en poco más que un subsidio para el sector privado, porque desvía las ganancias de las escuelas y otros servicios importantes, y sostienen que, desgraciadamente, muchos programas de TIF son poco transparentes. 

Los problemas son tan graves que varios trabajos comunitarios de base han desbaratado distritos propuestos para TIF en los últimos años, ya sea mediante elecciones o recursos legales. El financiamiento por incremento impositivo presenta el riesgo de funcionar más como incentivos de impuestos inmobiliarios para las empresas, otra práctica viciada que suele no cumplir con lo prometido, pero sigue siendo ampliamente utilizada. 

Sin embargo, los planificadores y gestores de políticas no se dan por vencidos con el TIF. En cambio, lo rediseñan y reinventan, añaden cláusulas para garantizar que se considere la igualdad y agregan opciones para permitir que los distritos escolares sigan accediendo a la renta. Algunas jurisdicciones realizaron pruebas con distritos para la mejora de la comunidad (CID, community improvement districts) como una especie de marco híbrido o alternativo que reúne las rentas por el impuesto sobre las ventas y el impuesto inmobiliario para un determinado proyecto de desarrollo.

Con la participación del sector privado, las ciudades también están uniendo el TIF con otros instrumentos de financiamiento, como convenios para la mejora crediticia o fondos de estabilización; tal es así, que los TIF tradicionales y aislados se conocen como TIF “vacíos”, y son cada vez menos frecuentes.

Cómo funciona el TIF

El financiamiento por incremento impositivo comenzó en California; las autoridades lo crearon para ayudar a redesarrollar áreas urbanas. Desde allí, se expandió rápidamente por todo el país. En el centro oeste hubo un interés particular: hubo una oleada de actividad de TIF en Wisconsin, Minnesota e Illinois en los 70 y los 80.

Misuri aprobó la ley de TIF en 1982, tres décadas después de que se creó la herramienta, pero no demoró en ponerla en acción: hoy, en el estado hay 468 distritos con TIF en 116 municipios, que incluyen 210 en el condado y la ciudad de St. Louis, y se recaudaron unos USD 2.200 millones en renta tributaria (Rittner et al. 2015). En otras partes, el apuro por utilizar la herramienta fue acentuado (ver Figura 1). Por ejemplo, en Iowa, la cantidad de distritos con TIF pasó de 949 a 3.340 en la última década (Collins et al. 2018).

Pero ¿cómo funciona el TIF? Normalmente, un gobierno municipal, avalado por la ley estatal, se asocia con el sector privado para designar un área como distrito con TIF, y calcula la cantidad de renta por impuesto inmobiliario que generará el proyecto en los próximos 10, 20 o más años. Esta renta proyectada suele incluir los impuestos sobre el proyecto mismo, además de los aumentos impositivos esperados en otras propiedades del distrito a medida que suben los valores tasados debido al TIF. En esencia, ese dinero se toma para respaldar las necesidades económicas actuales del proyecto y llevarlo a cabo. La renta impositiva se puede usar para financiar infraestructura pública, compensar a desarrolladores privados por sus inversiones u ofrecer una garantía para bonos.

La regulación estatal de permisos detalla a qué debería destinarse el TIF; algunos ejemplos de objetivos son desarrollo económico, saneamiento ambiental o viviendas. El uso del TIF se piensa, en su mayor parte, para afrontar el deterioro urbano. Algunos distritos con TIF corresponden a una sola parcela o sitio de desarrollo, mientras que otros son mucho más grandes (los críticos dicen que los distritos artificialmente grandes diseñados para aumentar la renta proyectada son solo uno de los muchos obstáculos del TIF).

Si bien el TIF está implementado en muchas partes, no se lo comprende muy bien, salvo entre quienes saben de financiación pública. Además, está sujeto a muchas variaciones en diseño e interpretación.

“Siempre me sorprendió cómo el TIF enardece las pasiones aunque no se entienda del todo”, dice David Merriman, profesor de la Universidad de Illinois en Chicago, quien dedicó dos años a explorar el país para elaborar el informe del Instituto Lincoln Improving Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for Economic Development (Cómo mejorar el financiamiento por incremento impositivo [TIF] para el desarrollo económico, Merriman 2018). El informe repasa el uso del financiamiento por incremento impositivo en una serie de comunidades y recomienda políticas para mejorar el uso del TIF. “Se puede considerar como algo que salvará y transformará los vecindarios o como algo que aburguesará los vecindarios y expulsará a las personas”.

Mientras investigaba el TIF de costa a costa, Merriman encontró muchos casos en los que el mecanismo funcionaba bien, como el Cortex Innovation District de St. Louis, un centro de biociencia y tecnología, construido en gran parte en tierras que quedaron vacantes a causa de emprendimientos fabriles abandonados en otra época. En otros casos, el uso del instrumento llevó a divisiones más profundas. La lucha contra el financiamiento por incremento impositivo asociada con Beltline, en Atlanta, se enardeció debido a la preocupación por del aburguesamiento, problemas de desigualdad racial y de ingresos, y porque las escuelas dejaron de recibir dinero de la renta impositiva.

Al igual que los incentivos tributarios para la ubicación de empresas, el TIF puede disparar guerras de ofertas entre jurisdicciones que compiten por el desarrollo. Los grupos de libre mercado y libertarios se unieron a los progresistas en contra del TIF, porque le otorga el poder al gobierno para elegir a los ganadores y los perdedores.

Merriman concluyó que el problema más grave relacionado con el TIF en los últimos veinte años es la falta de transparencia. El exalcalde de Chicago, Richard M. Daley, adoptó el financiamiento por incremento impositivo con fervor, y este tuvo un crecimiento tan grande que se destinaron USD 660 millones (casi un tercio del total de impuestos inmobiliarios en la ciudad) a distritos con TIF; así, se logró escudar el dinero de la supervisión estándar de los funcionarios electos. Los reporteros locales mostraron cómo el mecanismo se convirtió con efectividad en una especie de fondo ilegal para proyectos favorecidos. El alcalde Rahm Emanuel contrató a un cuerpo especial que recomendó reformas, pero el cambio se podría dar con lentitud, ya que decenas de distritos con TIF no llegaron ni a la mitad del período estipulado.

Merriman descubrió que una serie de pasos relativamente simples podrían promover la transparencia y beneficiar a casi todos los usos del TIF en Chicago y otros lugares. En Cómo mejorar el financiamiento por incremento impositivo (TIF) para el desarrollo económico, Merriman recomienda que los estados sigan de cerca y controlen el uso del TIF. En Wisconsin e Illinois se pueden encontrar programas modelo; allí, los entes estatales registran e informan las rentas totales por impuesto inmobiliario que se destinan a distritos con TIF, se exige que los gobiernos locales brinden información detallada sobre las rentas y su base imponible, y casi todo se publica en bases de datos en línea. Dice que sería sensato que todos los gobiernos locales brindaran información detallada y de fácil acceso sobre el uso del TIF, la renta y los gastos. Y los investigadores pueden hacer lo propio: estudiar y documentar los distintos resultados del TIF en una amplia variedad de zonas. Según el informe, hasta hoy, los estudios académicos sobre el TIF muestran diferentes resultados, pero no explican con claridad los motivos de estas variaciones.

También indica que los estados deberían permitir que los condados, distritos escolares y otros gobiernos locales involucrados puedan optar no estar incluidos en el TIF. Además, deberían afrontar el fenómeno llamado “de no ser por”: una interpretación libre de pruebas de que un desarrollo propuesto de TIF no se podría dar “de no ser por” la creación de un distrito con TIF.

La cláusula “de no ser por” podría haber durado más que su utilidad, que ya es limitada. “Es difícil demostrar fehacientemente [que un desarrollo podría no haberse logrado ‘de no ser por’ el TIF]; entonces, nunca se derriba nada en verdad. Debería haber un mejor obstáculo para proyectos malos”, dice Merriman. “Sería mejor tener algo más concreto; por ejemplo, hablar de un proyecto que cubra un 10 por ciento de la brecha”.

Financiamiento por incremento impositivo contra captura de valor territorial

El debate puede parecer equivalente, en el ámbito de la financiación pública, a aquel sobre los ángeles en la cabeza del alfiler, pero hay una diferencia entre el financiamiento por incremento impositivo y la captura de valor territorial. Últimamente, ambas políticas se han fusionado, y generaron un poco de confusión acerca de cómo se financia el redesarrollo urbano.

En un distrito con TIF, el desarrollo se financia al calcular la renta por tributos inmobiliarios que generará el proyecto en un determinado período; por ejemplo, 20 años. Ese dinero se reúne efectivamente con el fin de concretar el desarrollo, en una especie de proceso con concentración inicial. Esta renta anticipada a futuro se calcula al proyectar lo que pagarían los propietarios del suelo y la propiedad, bajo el sistema de tributación inmobiliaria vigente, según el valor tasado.

La captura de valor territorial, por su parte, les permite a las comunidades recuperar y reinvertir aumentos en el valor territorial que resultan de inversiones públicas y medidas gubernamentales, como una nueva línea de metro o una rezonificación. Los aumentos, que también se conocen como el aumento en el valor territorial, se miden para reflejar el impacto de dichas acciones públicas, ya sean de infraestructura, un parque nuevo o el cerramiento de la ampliación de un edificio. Las ganancias de ese cálculo se pueden usar para una serie de mejoras y obtener desarrollo urbano más equitativo, como viviendas asequibles e infraestructura.

Es cierto que un sistema de tributación inmobiliaria que funciona bien reflejará aumentos en el valor territorial, incluidos aquellos provocados por inversiones públicas. Pero la renta por tributos inmobiliarios suele ir a un fondo general, en vez de destinarse a la infraestructura que provoca el aumento de valor. Además, en muchas jurisdicciones hay limitaciones y restricciones sobre los aumentos en el impuesto inmobiliario. Por otro lado, los puristas de la captura de valor sostienen que los aumentos en valor atribuidos a la inversión pública pertenecen al público, y solo se recupera una parte.

Como establece David Merriman en el informe del Instituto Lincoln Improving Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for Economic Development (Cómo mejorar el financiamiento por incremento impositivo [TIF] para el desarrollo económico), el público no captura más del valor creado por las inversiones públicas en un distrito con TIF de lo que obtendría sin él. De hecho, dice: “Si algunas ganancias de TIF se usan para subsidiar la actividad privada, como suele ser el caso, el TIF es más bien un método para ‘transferir’ valor al sector privado, más que para ‘capturar valor’ de él”.

Algunos instrumentos para capturar valor territorial son aportes para mejoras, tasaciones especiales, recargos por derechos de construcción, exacciones y tasas de impacto o enlace, entre otros. A primera vista, los distritos con TIF parecen similares, en parte debido al carácter dirigido y autocontenido del mecanismo. En el futuro, el financiamiento por incremento impositivo y la captura de valor territorial podrían combinarse, mediante un recargo adicional u otra tasación especial. Pero, por el momento, y en mayor parte debido a que los enfoques se basan en distintos conceptos subyacentes, no son equivalentes. —AEF

Una herramienta que evoluciona

En muchos sentidos, ya se están viendo cambios. El TIF evoluciona con rapidez, a medida que los gestores de políticas notan los problemas.

California, que podría ser el lugar donde comenzó todo, una vez más lidera la reinvención del financiamiento de redesarrollo urbano y la infraestructura asociada. Las ciudades y pueblos del Estado Dorado solían depender mucho del TIF, que se administraba mediante cientos de autoridades cuasipúblicas de redesarrollo y, con los años, aportó más de USD 50.000 millones a la infraestructura y otros costos de desarrollo. En 2012, el gobernador Jerry Brown interrumpió la práctica, debido a las preocupaciones sobre la creciente deuda.

Sin embargo, en 2015 surgió un nuevo mecanismo para las ciudades, condados y distritos especiales de California, tal como lo haría una rama podada: el Enhanced Infrastructure Finance District (Distrito financiero con estructura mejorada), que permite emitir bonos de TIF en circunstancias específicas, con umbrales incluidos para que los votantes aprueben. El dinero se puede usar para obras públicas, transporte, parques, bibliotecas y servicios de agua y cloaca, con énfasis en objetivos de comunidad sustentable, bajo la ley climática característica de California.

Además, se priorizan los distritos financieros con estructura mejorada para “adquirir, construir o rehabilitar viviendas para personas con ingresos bajos o moderados”. Hasta ahora, los proyectos propuestos corresponden a una zona de influencia más amplia que los típicos distritos con TIF; así, en teoría, se permite que se beneficien más componentes de un determinado vecindario urbano.

En todo el país, las actividades más recientes sobre las leyes estatales y las resoluciones judiciales generaron amplias reformas del TIF. Según la base de datos del Instituto Lincoln Significant Features of the Property Tax (Características importantes del impuesto inmobiliario), desde 2017 nueve estados aprobaron leyes sustanciales para cambiar el TIF. Los ajustes se centran en tres áreas identificadas en el informe de Merriman: proteger el financiamiento de escuelas, calibrar las cláusulas de “de no ser por” y de deterioro, y solicitar transparencia.

Dakota del Norte, Colorado y Kansas enmendaron sus estatutos para eximir a los distritos escolares del TIF, y Montana aprobó una ley que exige a las municipalidades que consulten a las escuelas y otras autoridades tributarias que se vean afectadas. Minnesota expandió la elegibilidad del TIF para cubrir las viviendas de empleados, y Wisconsin creó zonas especiales para la fabricación de electrónica y tecnología de la información donde se puede usar el TIF. En las cortes, algunos proyectos se desbarataron debido a recusaciones; sin embargo, hasta ahora, en general el poder judicial apoyó la práctica. Este año, la Corte Suprema de Wisconsin defendió el uso de rentas por TIF para entregar subvenciones en efectivo a desarrolladores para costos de proyectos (Collins et al. 2018).

Además, el TIF se une cada vez más con otros mecanismos financieros de apoyo, como convenios para la mejora crediticia, adelantos de gravámenes de tasación especial o fondos de reserva o contingencia para ayudar a respaldar y salvaguardar acuerdos, lo cual minimiza el riesgo para el sector público.

“Los municipios tienen mucha presión, y se están agudizando sobre las herramientas con las que cuentan”, dice Emily Metzler, vicepresidenta sénior de MuniCap, una empresa con sede en Columbia, Maryland, que se especializa en incremento impositivo y en financiamiento por tasación especial. “Hemos visto un repunte en el uso de TIF, pero [también] más conocimiento sobre cómo usarlo mejor en la estructura de capital”.

El objetivo de estructurar muchos acuerdos en conjunto es exigir al desarrollador o propietario del sector privado que aporte efectivo en una especie de cuenta de depósito en garantía hasta que las rentas del TIF cubran lo suficiente. Al formar capas con la tasación especial, la mejora crediticia o los fondos de estabilización, se ayuda a minimizar el período de riesgo en el inicio y se aprovechan más las ganancias progresivas, dice Metzler. Este tipo de agrupación se hizo tan común que “el TIF solo se llama TIF vacío para nosotros”, dice.

Agrega que no es de sorprender que el financiamiento por incremento impositivo se hiciera polémico en tantos casos. “Pedimos tomar ganancias progresivas que, de otro modo, irían al fondo general. Cada vez que se hace eso, se requiere un proceso público. Ese proceso cobra cada vez más importancia. Antes, ibas a un par de audiencias del ayuntamiento y se hacía en cuatro meses. Ahora, se prepara toda la marca del proyecto, con mucha apelación al público, para asegurarse de que este lo apoye, y eso lleva, al menos, un año”.

No todas las modificaciones se reciben con el mismo entusiasmo. En algunas comunidades, el cambio es apremiante. Algunos escépticos piensan que el enfoque de agrupar herramientas solo agrega a una base de incentivos que ya son generosos, y las alternativas, como los distritos para la mejora comunitaria, no tuvieron resultados particularmente buenos.

Hace poco, Nicole Galloway, auditora estatal de Misuri, publicó un informe crítico hacia los distritos de mejora comunitaria como alternativa para el TIF; en él, cita un caso en que el único beneficiario del redireccionamiento de renta por el impuesto a las ventas fue un Starbucks. Dice que, dado que los desarrolladores controlan el 80 por ciento de las juntas de los CID, “quienes toman las decisiones de gastos son los propietarios y desarrolladores que pujan por ganar todo lo que puedan de la recaudación de impuestos en los distritos”.

A pesar de las modificaciones en la regulación estatal de permisos, en muchos casos las cláusulas de “de no ser por” y de deterioro se obstinan en permanecer intercambiables. Estas pruebas y umbrales se pueden manipular con facilidad, ya que los políticos y desarrolladores entusiastas se involucran en el mercadeo de las propuestas de proyectos. Algunas pocas pautas fuerzan a considerar factores demográficos y de desigualdad de ingresos, o bien garantizan que el financiamiento por incremento impositivo se dé en las zonas que en verdad necesiten un impulso, en vez de en vecindarios que ya mejoraron.

Algunos cambios bien intencionados produjeron consecuencias involuntarias. Después de que Illinois reescribiera las normas para permitir que los distritos escolares se retiraran de los distritos con TIF y pudieran solicitar asistencia estatal, el alcalde de Naperville, Illinois, que queda en las afueras de Chicago, sugirió sin pudor que la ciudad entera fuera un distrito con TIF para poder recaudar más ganancias y cubrir el financiamiento escolar.

En su totalidad, el TIF ha demostrado ser demasiado tentador para los funcionarios electos concentrados en el desarrollo económico. Los legisladores de Kentucky respondieron a un distrito con TIF en problemas: autorizaron la extensión de su período de 23 a 45 años. En los últimos días de la sesión legislativa de Rhode Island de este año, los dirigentes estatales aprobaron el financiamiento por incremento impositivo en los pueblos costeros Middletown y Newport; en el último, el acuerdo incluyó un hotel y un espacio comercial para el famoso destino turístico. Además, aprobaron sin vacilar un paquete que incluía TIF para financiar un estadio a fin de mantener al equipo Red Sox, de las ligas menores, en Pawtucket. Este verano, el equipo acordó mudarse a Worcester, Massachusetts, lo cual trajo un manojo de incentivos aun más grandes, entre ellos un distrito con TIF para el centro, donde se planea construir un nuevo estadio.

¿Eliminarlo o repararlo?

Las ciudades bien podrían estar en una encrucijada respecto del TIF: eliminarlo o repararlo.

Joan Youngman, directora del Departamento de valuación y tributación y miembro sénior del Instituto Lincoln, dijo que hay medidas evidentes que pueden tomar hoy las ciudades y los estados para mejorar el rendimiento del TIF. Por más que resulte tentador atenerse a algo conocido, quienes busquen desarrollos más equitativos podrían considerar evitar el TIF y desarrollar herramientas alternativas para financiar la infraestructura, las viviendas asequibles y el desarrollo económico.

Merriman está de acuerdo, pero agrega: “Se considera al desarrollo económico como lo más importante que puede hacer una ciudad. No es un regalo. Uno paga los mismos impuestos que pagaría sin el TIF. Y se requiere un plan palpable y anticipado. Al mismo tiempo, debemos vigilarlo de cerca y comprender cómo se puede abusar de él”.

La buena noticia es que las fallas en la política de TIF despiertan innovación y creatividad. Portland, en Maine, es cada vez más buscada en el mercado, y ha modificado el TIF para alcanzar metas de planificación urbana más enfocadas. Según explica Jeff Levine, director de planificación, la nueva regulación estatal de permisos abre el camino para que las ciudades usen un TIF general para mejorar el crédito o para la infraestructura pública en cualquier parte de la zona, hasta el 5 por ciento de la zona urbana, pero no hay límite si la actividad se da dentro de un centro definido. El TIF para desarrollo orientado al tránsito se puede usar para financiar operaciones de tránsito en la zona y se puede combinar con otros tipos de TIF. Y un TIF para viviendas asequibles se puede usar para financiar cualquier vivienda en una o varias parcelas, siempre que al menos un tercio de las viviendas de la zona sean asequibles al 120 por ciento de la renta mediana de la zona, con debidas restricciones.

En Portland, el TIF se adecúa para alcanzar metas de políticas más amplias y se suele combinar con otras herramientas, como créditos fiscales históricos o de vivienda. El resultado general es un marco más intencional para regenerar y desarrollar, más que el enfoque específico que se usa en otras partes y que suele estar impulsado por una sensación de desesperación.

El modo en que las ciudades encaran el redesarrollo “tiene mucho que ver con la autoestima de cada ciudad”, dice Metzger. Y no se refiere solamente a St. Louis. Afirma que un plan más coordinado, enfocado en la desigualdad de ingresos y viviendas asequibles, podría ser útil en cualquier parte; siempre y cuando los gobiernos inviten a los ciudadanos a participar.

“Hemos detallado un plan para lograr transparencia e igualdad racial, y tenemos los datos y los mapas que lo respaldan”, dice.

“Estamos intentando mantener la antorcha encendida”.

Anthony Flint es miembro sénior del Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo.

Fotografía: Eric Bowers. Subtítulo: La investigación sugiere que el TIF suele desplazar la actividad económica que se habría dado de todas formas en zonas con movimiento económico. En Kansas City, Misuri, se aprobaron ocho veces más acuerdos de TIF en zonas de poca pobreza, como Country Club Plaza, que en zonas como East Kansas City, con índices de pobreza superiores al 30 por ciento.

Referencias

Better Together St. Louis. 2018. “Tax Increment Financing Map.” www.bettertogetherstl.com/tax-incremental-financing-map.

Burton, Paul. 2018. “PawSox on Deck After Rhode Island Lawmakers OK Stadium Bond Deal.” The Bond Buyer, 25 de junio. https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/rhode-island-lawmakers-ok-tif-backed-stadium-bond-deal.

Collins, Catherine, Daphne A. Kenyon, Andrew Reschovsky, Bethany Paquin y Lars Arnesen. 2018. “Property Tax Developments, 2017–2018.” State Tax Notes, 24 de septiembre. https://www.taxnotes.com/state-tax-notes/charitable-giving/property-tax-developments-2017-2018/2018/09/24/28cwf.

Day, Linda. 2016. “A New Financing Tool for California: Enhanced Infrastructure Finance Districts.” Planetizen, 31 de agosto. https://www.planetizen.com/node/88347/new-financing-tool-california-enhanced-infrastructure-finance-districts.

Doyle, Megan. 2018. “Portland Council Approves Tax Breaks for Senior and Low-Income Housing Projects.” Portland Press Herald, 16 de julio. https://www.pressherald.com/2018/07/16/council-approves-tax-breaks-for-senior-and-low-income-housing-projects/.

East-West Gateway Council of Governments. 2016. “The Use of Development Incentives in the St. Louis Region.” Actualización de noviembre de 2016 de An Assessment of the Effectiveness and Fiscal Impacts of the Use of Development Incentives in the St. Louis Region, 2011. https://www.ewgateway.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/DevIncentivesRpt-2016.pdf.

Hegarty, Erin. 2018. “Naperville Mayor Suggests ‘Major’ Special Taxing District to Push Lawmakers into TIF Reform.” Naperville Sun, 7 de agosto. www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/news/ct-nvs-mayor-chirco-naperville-tif-district-st-0808-story.html.

Kotsopoulos, Nick. 2018. “Tax Incentives Key for PawSox Stadium, Land Development in Worcester.” Telegram & Gazette, 19 de agosto. www.telegram.com/news/20180819/tax-incentives-key-for-pawsox-stadium-land-development-in-worcester.

Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo. “Significant Features of the Property Tax Database.” https://www.lincolninst.edu/research-data/data/significant-features-property-taxr.

Merriman, David. 2018. Improving Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for Economic Development. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo. https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/policy-focus-reports/improving-tax-increment-financing-tif-economic-development.

Merriman, David, Di Qiao y Tianshu Zhao. 2018. “Evidence About State by State Use of Tax Increment Financing.” State Tax Notes, 4 de junio. https://www.taxnotes.com/state-tax-today/property-taxation/evidence-about-state-state-use-tax-increment-financing/2018/06/20/2801z.

Metzger, Molly. 2016. “What is TIF?” Diapositivas de presentación digital. Team TIF St. Louis (sitio web). www.teamtifstl.com/resources/what-is-tif-presentation.

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