LeClaire: Housing project stalled over tax-increment plan
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By Mary Louise Speer | Wednesday, January 16, 2008 |
LeCLAIRE, Iowa — A prime parcel of LeClaire land will sit empty for the foreseeable future.
The LeClaire City Council reaffirmed a decision made in June to offer residential tax-increment financing, or TIF, to developers Mike Ingleby and Don Banks for 68 single-family attached homes with a base price of $150,000 each.
The site is located south of Iowa Drive in west LeClaire and the developers requested
$1.5 million in TIF assistance, estimating the project would cost between $10 million and
$12 million.
Those proposed figures are unworkable, Ingleby said.
“You can’t build it and make the money,” he said, adding they initially believed they could build Villas at River Crossing for that price tag, based on a similar housing project in
West Des Moines.
City officials and Ingleby disagreed over a resolution made in June on the residential proposal. The disagreement was over whether the housing units had to be sold at a base price of $150,000 or if TIF would be rebated only on that amount, even if the actual costs were higher.
Council member Lane Bleeker said he does not favor offering residential TIF if the homes cost more than $150,000. “Again, the intent and the idea was to tie in some housing that we don’t have, $150,000,” he said.
LeClaire has new housing options available in the $250,000 to $350,000 and up to $1 million price range, council member Ron Leiby pointed out. “The $150,000 range is what we need. It’s nothing against your development,” he said to Ingleby.
“Are there any houses in LeClaire that are under $200,000? You go through the whole Quad-Cities, the $150,000 is just not being done,” Ingleby said.
The city has faced challenges from the Scott County Board of Supervisors over how the city uses TIF for residential development. Giving out residential TIF has impacted city services and Pleasant Valley School District, Mayor Robert Scannell said.
“I’ll welcome any developer that wants to build (houses), but they won’t receive TIF,” he said. “We have enough residential. We need to use TIF to bring in more commercial.”
The TIF monies that were given out in past years have not started coming back in strong enough to help balance the budget. “My main priority is to cut costs. We’re going to balance the budget,” he said.
If the development had gone through, LeClaire would have received $2,500 or more in tax revenue from a house assessed at $150,000. The city received about $1.4 million in TIF revenues in fiscal year 2007, and about $1.3 million in 2006.
“Because of the increasing valuation, the city expects to receive more TIF revenue in the coming years,” City Administration Ed Choate said.
The city desk can be contacted at
(563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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