TIF Subsidized Elgin Condos

If you wonder why McHenry County Blog is sensitized to Tax Increment Financing abuses, you need go no farther than Elgin.

Last Saturday’s Elgin Courier-News ran a front page article entitled,
Doubts cast on condos in Elgin

It tells of the 16-sotry condo planned for the Gail Borden Public Library site right next to the Fox River.

The city council has already “voted to give the developers RSC & Associates Inc., land and tax rebates worth some $13 million last year.”

So, as you read my efforts to figure out what the Crystal Lake City Council will do with the money from the three recently approved TIFs—

  • Virginia Street from McDonalds (just torn down) to Burger King;
  • Main Street (from the Union Pacific main line railroad tracks to the spur at Farr Manufacturing; and
  • Vulcan Lakes (all of Route 14 east of Harris Bank to Pingree Road and back to Rakow Road, plus Curran Contracting’s property),

you’ll know why my and your antennae should be up.

TIF’s can be abused big time.


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