Either mayoral candidate Lyda Krewson has a poor memory about the tax abatements she has legislated or she provided alternative facts during the St. Louis Mayoral Forum on February 22, which was hosted by 12 community organizations and St. Louis Public Radio, Nine Network and The St. Louis American.
The American asked all the candidates to look at the tax incentives they have supported through a racial equity lens and critique those TIFs or tax abatements by whether or not they “have encouraged gentrification and a stronger divide between the haves and have-nots.”
Krewson mainly talked about incentives that have helped to rebuild the Delmar Loop over the past 15 years, which enabled the Pageant, the Pin-Up Bowl and Moonrise Hotel. She said they were previously vacant lots and did not cause gentrification because no one was living there.
Krewson was then asked to review the bills she had passed for tax abatements for single-family homes.
“Do you feel that encourages gentrification, and what are the impacts of sponsoring tax abatements for individual homes in well-to-do areas?” she was asked.
“I don’t think that I have tax-abated any individual homes in the 28th Ward,” Krewson said. “That would be a very rare situation.”
In fact, she has sponsored many in her 20 years on the Board of Aldermen.
In September 2016, Krewson sponsored a 10-year tax abatement for an empty lot at 5766 Pershing Ave. that was purchased by the developer for $12,500 in June 2015 and sold as a single-family home for $336,300 on October 4, 2016 – about 10 days before Krewson’s bill received final approval from the Board of Aldermen.
That means that the property was already completed, so the “but for” test – that the project would not move forward “but for” tax incentives – is questionable.
In the fall of 2013, she sponsored a five-year tax abatement for a beautiful two-story home at 5774 De Giverville. The sales price is not available.
She sponsored a five-year tax abatement for a two-family home at 6027 Westminster Place in 2009 and a five-year tax abatement for 6168 Washington Blvd., which sold for $320,000 in 2008.
In 2007, 5792 Waterman Blvd. received a 10-year tax abatement. The house next door sold for $220,000 in 2005. The house is estimated to be worth about $500,000 today and will finally be bringing in some revenue for the city.
And there are more.
“We are in desperate need of revenue for the city and the school district, and tax abatements given out where they are not needed are basically a drain for the system,” said Molly Metzger, a Washington University professor of social work, who has written reports about how St. Louis needs policy reform in how it awards tax incentives.
Metzger was among a grassroots group called Team TIF that opposed the recent blighting of the gas station at the corner of Delmar and Skinker boulevards. At the January 4 TIF Commission meeting, developers Pace-Delmar Associates requested $4.374 million in TIF support for the $25.9 million Northgate project – that’s 16.8 percent of the total cost, which surpasses the commission’s recommended 15 percent ceiling. Krewson sponsored the bill for the Northgate TIF.
Circle K representatives also spoke against the project, saying that they would like to remain at that location. They also said the city’s blight study was flawed because they would be happy to renovate the area if given a chance. In order to be blighted, it has to pass the “but for” test.
Jason Deem, a developer who has several projects on Cherokee Street, also argued that blighting an area in “the most successful commercial district” in the city was flawed. He questioned why the project’s representative, attorney David Richardson, had labeled the project area as a “dead zone.”
“The Loop is not a dead zone,” Deem said. “This is a dead parcel in a super successful district; that’s a great opportunity. This is a perfect example of something that would exist without public subsidy.”
Krewson did not talk about these community concerns in her critique of tax incentives she supported. She also didn’t talk about her attempt to blight Westminster Place, an area at N. Taylor Avenue and Westminster Place, and give tax abatements for the development of five new, $675,000 townhomes.
At the January 10 meeting of the aldermanic Neighborhood Development Committee, Alderwoman Cara Spencer (Ward 20) said, “I’m having a hard time understanding why any tax abatement would be needed to sell townhomes on one of the most sought-after streets in the city.”
When asked what the average sale price of single houses in that neighborhood, Krewson suggested around $500,000-$600,000.
Metzger said she was happy to hear that candidates say at the forum that they would be willing to explore tax-incentive reform. “But,” she said, “I’m also looking at the records of specific candidates to see if their past behavior matches their rhetoric.”
