My New Coloring Book!
l3wis 
Development
It’s going to be an interesting Friday in Sioux Falls
There has been a rumor floating around today that Mayor TenHaken plans to have a news conference tomorrow afternoon at around 2 PM at City Hall concerning a new development downtown.
I guess a deal has been in the works to finish off the rest of the Railroad Redevelopment site just east of the 8th and RR Building. The two proposals floating out there are workforce housing (market rate apartments) and luxury condos. I can’t tell who the competing developers are or if this is what the rumored press conference is about, but the timing of this supposed press conference is interesting considering the council suddenly posted today they are having a 1 PM working session on Friday, that has NO public agenda items except public input and they go directly into executive session. Maybe they should have just called a City Council Poetry Reading since I find it laughable they are calling a faux working session so they can be told something privately.
These folks are so sloppy.
Councilors and council staff are not allowed to tell the public what goes on during the session, but I can make some guesses. It could be about the development Poops may announce (sneakily telling council only a few minutes before he announces a proposal to the public) or it could be a settlement has been reached with the Bunker Ramp and that could be the ultimate announcement?
My head has been spinning for weeks while watching Paul pack 4 years of his do nothing term (that he didn’t sign up for) into a few weeks of getting something done. Maybe he will announce he is cancelling the election because his opponents don’t have a snowball’s chance?
At this point nothing would f’ing surprise me.
HB1033 Amended to block Developer Welfare Cookie Jar
Not everything that happens in the legislature this year is a total toilet flush. HB1033 which provides $200 Million towards housing passed after being amended to leave the welfare developers hands out of the cookie jar.
Section 6. The executive director of the South Dakota Housing Development Authority shall approve vouchers and the state auditor shall draw warrants to pay expenditures authorized by this Act.
Originally the private contractors and developers wanted a portion of this fund to carte blanche build whatever they wanted whether it was affordable housing or not. Now the SDHDA has the power to make sure the funding goes towards worthy accessible housing projects. The private developers still get a piece of the pie if they are willing to help build affordable housing.
Developers
Development
Downtown Sioux Falls
Railroads
Sioux Falls
State Funding
State Legislature
TIFs
Failures of the RR Redevelopment negotiations rear their head again
And here we go, throwing more Federal money at the project and it’s an EMERGENCY even though the trains have tooting their horns through SF for over 100 years!
While I don’t oppose creating quiet zones throughout the city (even though we know this is probably for DTSF exclusively) it is pretty obvious we have to do this because we failed to remove the RR tracks from downtown during the negotiations. While it will make DTSF safer with the crossbars, the only noise it eliminates is the sirens from the trains, you will continue to hear them barrel down the track and cause traffic interruptions.
I have NO DOUBT the Feds will probably reimburse the state, but you have to admit since we didn’t successfully remove the tracks from this area to begin with, we are just playing a game of whack a mole and this is the latest.
So far the developer in this area has received millions in improvements to the River Greenway, a significant discount on the land, multiple TIFs (to build condos) and now another $5 million to create quiet zones next to those condos.
Here’s a concept DON’T BUILD CONDOS AND APARTMENTS NEXT TO A RAILROAD TRACK, or better yet work with our Washington delegates to get the tracks torn out. Nope, let’s just keep throwing tax dollars at small bandaids that doesn’t fix the bigger problem TRAINS RUMBLING THROUGH DOWNTOWN FOR NO DAMN GOOD REASON!
City of Sioux Falls Finally gets it together on housing, maybe?
So after our unemployment rates drops to almost zero, and we have more warehouse jobs than workers, the city finally engages on a housing plan, read it HERE.
While Director Matt Tobias’ (not sure what his title is since the Poops Admin likes to make up fancy titles every 3 months) presentation was the best I am not sure why it took a decade and a massive board to finally implement a plan just a couple of months from a city election. Matt made great points that I have been harping about for years like promoting the community development programs, increasing the income level of qualification and pushing for up to $30K loans at 0% interest.
Like I said, glad to see the wheels turning, but I am also wondering why it took so long. We have known for over a decade that the city was growing at an enormous rate and density in our core was crucial. Many administrations, private non-profits, councilors and developers have talked about it. In fact I attempted to bring in the Strongtown’s founder over 10 years ago to speak on it, but I couldn’t get enough people to help donate to his gas money and hotel room. When he eventually came, I had to chuckle when people said to me if I had heard of him.
I will tell you why it has taken so long to get the ball rolling; GREED and the cornfields are running out.
Just listen to what Greg Neitzert said about it, once again defending the developers and contractors and how gosh darn it, they need to make money or the plan won’t work. I agree, anyone in business for themselves needs to make a profit and they need to eat, but I have rarely met a large developer in this town that is living in central Sioux Falls in a 900 sq ft home. With their profit margins, no state income tax, low labor costs and multiple tax incentives, they do ok. There is absolutely NO reason why they can’t do projects in the core building density and NOT make money.
I also look at this as LOCAL economic development. Most of the smaller contractors that do this kind of work are local, they live here, their workers live here and likely they buy materials and tools here. That all gets recirculated into the economy.
Don’t fool yourself, these policies have been researched for a long time, but like most things in this city and even country, if someone can’t figure out how to gouge the consumer the feckless leaders don’t act. This is one of the main reasons it infuriated me that they are asking for a raise. I guess they think they need to be paid more for doing less.