With Orland Park considering three new tax increment financing districts in an attempt to spur development, more than 30 residents at a town hall meeting Wednesday were encouraged to get more involved in the process.
Tom Tresser, who’s studied TIF districts for a number of years and spoken on the topic around the country, said residents should take an active role when a municipality is considers creating TIFs.
“You gotta get in the game,” he said.
Mohammed Jaber, an Orland High School District 230 Board member, organized the town hall and said the village should hold off creating TIF districts. He and Tresser said financial audits for the village’s Main Street Triangle TIF are missing for 2021, 2022 and 2023.
That TIF district is due to expire in 2027, although Orland Park has created another TIF that includes village-owned land being considered for development in the Main Street Triangle, northwest of La Grange Road and 143rd Street.
The village is trying to stave off a forced audit by the state comptroller’s office, which is pressing Orland Park to file audits with the state for the 2022 and 2023 budget years, which follow the calendar year.
Orland Park hired an auditor to do both, with the 2022 audit having been expected to be wrapped up Oct. 31, and 2023’s audit by early next year, according to correspondence from the village to the comptroller’s office.
Jaber, before Tresser spoke, told the audience TIF districts “are for struggling communities” and Orland Park doesn’t fit into the category of struggling.
Along with the long-vacant Andrew Corp. headquarters and factory, 10500 W. 153rd St., the village is studying possible TIFs to take in the closed Petey’s II restaurant at the southwest corner of La Grange Road and 159th Street, and the former site of Terry’s Lincoln-Mercury at the southwest corner of 143rd Street and John Humphrey Drive.
The Village Board voted in August to commit to working on possible redevelopment projects at the sites, and developers have already put money into escrow funds to pay some of the costs.
Orland Park has also tapped its TIF consultant, SB Friedman Development Advisors, to work on the TIF eligibility.
To be eligible under the state’s TIF statutes, properties have to be declared “blighted” due to factors such as decay, lack of redevelopment and falling property tax revenue. Municipalities, under state statute governing TIFs, also have to prove that development on properties considered for a TIF won’t occur unless a TIF is created.
TIF districts have been used extensively in south and southwest suburban Cook County to attract development.
But Tresser said communities have been able to create TIF areas that are far from being considered rundown or blighted.
“The definition of blight is meaningless,” he said.
In a TIF district, property taxes for all government bodies are frozen at levels at the time the TIF is created and any increase due to higher property values, the increment, is used to pay for improvements or incentives TIF districts typically expire after 23 years but can be extended to up to 35 years
Other taxing bodies, such as school districts, don’t see increased property tax revenue from any development until after the TIF expires, and don’t have a share of any community’s sales tax money redevelopment might create.
Tresser said there are 309 TIFs in suburban Cook County and more than 1,400 throughout Illinois.
“This is a thing that’s happening all across the state,” he said.
The expected increases in property values and tax revenue due to redevelopment is the “increment” that is set aside in a special fund particular to the TIF district, Tresser explained.
The extra tax money can be used to pay bonds, pay for site improvements such as utilities, demolition of existing buildings in the TIF and public streets and sidewalks. For a developer, they don’t see that money upfront, but they can be reimbursed for what they spend.
Jaber has urged village officials to delay creating TIF districts, which, he said, would “redirect millions of dollars in property taxes into ‘a fund of uncertainty’ that are earmarked for local schools, the Orland Park Library, the Orland Fire Protection District and the Village of Orland Park.”
Chicago-based JD Real Estate controls the 38-acre property where Petey’s II stands as well as the 8.3 acres where the car dealership was located.
The firm, in December 2023, put $100,000 into two escrow funds to help pay for some costs associated with the feasibility studies, with the understanding the accounts may need to be replenished.
The former 74-acre Andrew Corp. property is controlled by Orland Park Lake Ventures LLC from South Holland, according to village documents. It put $85,000 into escrow to help pay for costs associated with studying possible TIF districts, documents from December show.
The Andrew property had been eyed for two different housing developments, but plans were scuttled due to environmental issues.
Orland Park Lake Ventures plans a mix of homes and retail on the property, according to the village.
No public hearings on proposed TIFs have yet been scheduled.
mnolan@southtownstar.com
