The Tribune-Review reports that some Pittsburgh City Council members are questioning the city Urban Redevelopment Authority’s city-funded “affordable housing plan.”
At issue is the city’s (in the name of taxpayers) “being on the hook for $62.5 million in bond repayments.”
As the Trib reports it:
“Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration and the URA have provided few specifics on how the money would be spent, and some council members said they thought it was unusual for the city to agree to pay back an independent authority’s bond debt. …
“The proposal would allocate $2.5 million a year for 25 years — a total of $62.5 million — from the city’s general fund to the URA, according to Jake Pawlak, director of the city’s office of management and budget. The URA would then use the money to pay back their debt on a bond that officials estimated would bring in between $25 million and $40 million over the next three years.”
And here’s the thing that makes us go “Huh?”:
“Pawlak said the city would not be paying off the debt directly, only allocating money to the URA for it to do so.”
It is, of course, a distinction without a difference, not to mention a classic example of government doublespeak.
Here’s another public policy development that forces us to ask “Huh?”:
The Post-Gazette reports that a massive building now nearing completion in New Stanton near the Pennsylvania Turnpike likely will be a new Amazon warehouse.
Amazon’s staying mum. So, too, is the developer. But reporter Mark Belko says if it looks like a $130 million, 1-million-square-foot Amazon warehouse – which it does – it’s likely a $130 million, 1-million-square-foot Amazon warehouse.
But buried in the story is this little ditty:
“The SunCap [the Charlotte, N.C., developer of the facility] warehouse could be the biggest facility of them all. But neither the borough, the school district or Westmoreland County will immediately profit from its construction. The property is subject to a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance, or LERTA, program for five years. The three taxing bodies extended the tax abatement program at the request of the former property owner before the land was sold for the redevelopment.”
What did the previous land owner know and when did he know it?
A New Stanton official tells the P-G that taxing bodies won’t receive any additional property tax revenue for five years. He notes that the borough currently receives about $258 a year, the school district, $5,140 and the county, $1,352.
Indeed, once the abatement ends, the official says the coming, supposed, Amazon warehouse “definitely would be the biggest taxpayer in the borough.”
But what a sweetheart deal to start for one of the world’s largest and richest businesses, eh?
And it’s just another in a lone line of public policy matters that should make us all ask “Huh?”
Colin McNickle is communication and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
