Politics & Government

Dempster-Waukegan Plan Clears A Hurdle

Schools had feared they would lose money, but village will likely raise sales tax in that area and funnel the revenue to them.

 

A plan to redevelop the Dempster Street and Waukegan Road area surmounted a key hurdle Thursday.

Some had under the proposal for a TIF district. However, local taxing bodies, including , District 219 and the Morton Grove Library voted 4-1 to approve the plan after a way was found to provide them some revenue. The voted against it.

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Basically, those taxing bodies entered into a revenue-sharing agreement to receive a portion of revenues from a sales tax hike.

"It's a TIF District, and now we're going to layer over it a business district," said Ryan Horne, Morton Grove's village administrator. 

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Earlier:

Both TIF Districts and business districts are designations under Illinois law to help give underperforming malls or other commercial areas a shot in the arm. They allow municipalities to provide tax incentives to businesses or collect a tax on behalf of another entity.

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In the case of this area--which includes Prairie View Plaza, Castle Honda, the space that Produce World used to occupy before it moved, and some other nearby parcels--creating the business district would allow the Village of Morton Grove to impose a 0.25 percent (25 cents on $100) sales tax increase on purchases in the area, and a portion of that money would go to the schools and other taxing districts, according to Horne.

"It's very creative," he said.

The village board has not approved the business district plan yet.

Horne said the business district plan would be easy to administer, because the Salvation Army store and the former Par King property are in District 70, so sales tax revenues on purchases made there would go to District 70. The rest of the property, more or less, lies within District 67's boundaries, so it would get sales tax revenue from purchases there.

Horne estimated the taxing bodies could start seeing revenue from the agreement by June 2013, if the TIF district and business district were in place by January 2013.

Brian Sullivan, executive director of the Morton Grove Park District, said "At the Joint Review Board (meeting Thursday), we were able go let language put in that they'd get agreements put in place prior to the adaptation of the actual TIF by the village board. That should help District 67 and 70."

District 67 superintendent Jamie Reilly became amenable to the plan after the revenue-sharing agreement was proposed, according to Pioneer Press


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