Inclusion

It's difficult to know which of the individuals speaking at this presentation by the Charity Innovation District whatever actually know they are being used as window dressing.  Maybe it's just enough to have been included. 

Over and over again Monday (Sept. 24), civic and business leaders emphasized how important equity would be in creating the new Spirit of Charity Innovation District, an area seeking millions of dollars in public incentives to redevelop the area that included what was for decades New Orleans' acute health care facility.

Speakers during an event presenting the broad contours of the district focused on an array of topics ranging from transportation to housing and business incubators. But many came back to the topic of equity and inclusion.

Greater New Orleans Foundation President Andy Kopplin, who helped lead the creation of the strategy unveiled Monday, went so far as to say the district could one day be held up as an example of economic development executed in a highly inclusive way.

"This redevelopment should be an unprecedented model for equity and economic inclusion. ... Everyone must win in every aspect of the project," Kopplin said.

Yeah yeah yeah. The whole purpose of this "District" planning process is to justify the creation of a Tax Increment Financing District. What that means, generally speaking, is a portion of sales or property tax generated in the neighborhood gets redirected from the schools, roads, and city services it was meant to fund and placed in the hands of some unelected District administrators who will use it to "incentivize" whatever they choose.  Of course, they will be very inclusive about these decisions.

Probably they will include the Charity developers, though. At least, that's what the developers' proposals seem to assume.

Subsidies: Unlike the Tulane Partners plan, HRI would rely on revenue from a tax-increment financing district proposed for an area of the CBD to surround the hospital. Tax increment financing uses tax revenue from future development, and in this case, HRI is proposing to divert $40 million in sales tax revenue from the 382,000 square feet of retail and 82 apartments across the street. The project would also rely on between $211 million and $224 million in tax credits. The option that includes City Hall as a major tenant would call for $91.6 million in prepaid rent, presumably from City Hall, as that financing element isn't called for in the other two scenarios.

And the TIF inclusion is really just one part of the larger puzzle in these proposals.  HRI's and Tulane Partners differ in specific elements. Tulane's includes a charter school, perhaps. HRI's suggests City Hall.  Both have plans for "affordable housing" assuming they can tap the appropriate subsidy for that.  But the common thread running through each plan is this.  Each group is working to jam into the building as many spigots of available money as they can identify. It's really that, rather than some reverse engineered public input process that's really driving things here.  Sure, it's inclusive.  Not really in the sense you might want it to be, though.