MARYLAND HEIGHTS — City officials here are still scratching their heads after a commission voted this month against using tax incentives that some hoped would finally spur development of the low-lying ground near the Missouri River.
Developing the Maryland Park Lake District, protected from the river by the Howard Bend Levee, has been a city goal for years, enshrined in Maryland Heights’ comprehensive plan and pushed by the owners of some of the last undeveloped land in 51ºÚÁÏ County.
Environmental groups, though, have criticized the plan, which would have subsidized development and financed the stormwater infrastructure needed to pump out rainwater that frequently floods the valley. The plan’s use of tax increment financing, which over the years has diverted hundreds of millions of regional tax dollars generated by new development to finance construction costs, made it still more controversial.
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But for the first time, 51ºÚÁÏ County used new clout granted under a 2016 Missouri law to block a municipal TIF plan. The six county appointees to the 12-member Maryland Heights TIF Commission voted against the city’s TIF proposal. 51ºÚÁÏ County Executive Sam Page explained after the vote that he had “deep reservations†about flood plain development and “serious reservations†about past TIF use in 51ºÚÁÏ County.
“The use of TIF for green space should be rare, and any time TIF is used for green space, it’s going to get very close scrutiny,†Page said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch.
Page’s comments on the issue are the first since the Jan. 3 TIF Commission vote against using as much as $151 million in TIF subsidies to develop the 2,200 acres of flood-prone land.
City officials said they were blindsided by the 7-5 decision.
“From the very beginning, since our initial meetings in September, they gave every indication they were supporting the action of the TIF,†Maryland Heights Economic Development manager Jim Carver said of discussions with county officials.
Page said he had made no commitments.
“I had a lot of conversations and a lot of listening sessions with them,†he said. “And it is not unusual for someone who listens and doesn’t argue to be misinterpreted as someone who supported.â€
While he said he made his concerns known to his appointees and wasn’t surprised with their votes, Page said the decision was ultimately with the TIF commissioners, who spent more time studying the issue than he did. He didn’t tell anyone how to vote, he said.
“They all had reservations,†Page said.
‘First time’
For years, 51ºÚÁÏ County municipalities were able to use TIFs to finance development, often at the expense of their neighbors. The East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the region’s planning arm, found . In 51ºÚÁÏ County, some $729 million in tax money was diverted to TIFs from 1987 through 2015,
In 2016, the Missouri Legislature changed the TIF statute so that a negative recommendation from a 51ºÚÁÏ-area commission limits TIF spending to demolition, land clearance and grading, barring developers from using the funds to pay consultants and construction costs. With six members of the TIF commissions made up of county appointees and only three from the municipality (the remaining three are from schools and other taxing districts), the change gave 51ºÚÁÏ County far more clout.
“This is really the first time we’ve seen a negative recommendation actually have significant teeth with respect to a city’s ability to carry out a project,†said Armstrong Teasdale attorney Robert Klahr, an expert in TIF and other development incentives.
In Maryland Heights, for example, the Howard Bend Levee District had planned to issue bonds to build a pump station worth between $8 million and $10 million that the TIF could have helped finance. Now, TIF revenue can’t be used for that infrastructure, which landowners say is essential to control stormwater that pools in the bottoms. The levee may keep the Missouri River out, but it also keeps rainwater in, a problem that last spring’s rains made all too obvious for the area’s farmers and property owners.
The measure had also become a focal point for environmental groups around the region who worry where that water would be pumped should all the green space be developed — and the future risk that the levee might someday fail.
Jamie Gilley, an opponent of the plan who is also running for city council in Maryland Heights, cheered the TIF Commission’s vote. She said the city could still attract visitors if it kept the bottoms as mostly a conservation area.
“We are a region,†she said. “We have to begin to address these types of issues on a regional basis, not at a municipal level. What we do is going to have effects up and down the river.â€
Still, the farmers and small businesses in the area have struggled with flooding as storms drop more water at once due to climate change and the region has developed more of the green space that can absorb rainfall. The TIF seemed like the most “expedient†way to solve the problem, said Albert Stix Jr., whose family owns property at the Creve Coeur Airport in the area and who has studied the history of the valley.
“I get it — some of those farmers are tired, they’re sick and tired of this because it happens much more often than it used to,†Stix said. “We want to respect all the property rights of all the owners in the valley. It’s their right to want to sell their ground if that’s what they want to do to develop it.â€
‘Top priority’
Page said his primary concern about the proposal was the potential impact development would have had on the county-owned Creve Coeur Lake Memorial Park, just southeast of the proposed TIF area.
“M²â top priority in the Maryland Heights valley is protecting Creve Coeur Park,†Page said.
Carver, the city economic development manager, said the county’s requests were part of the TIF plan, including a requirement that any developers who came forward would have to show they wouldn’t negatively impact the park.
Maryland Heights Mayor Mike Moeller said he still didn’t understand the county’s opposition.
“They’re one of the biggest beneficiaries of it if it happens,†Moeller said. “They’re the biggest landowner in the bottoms. It certainly would protect Creve Coeur park and allow people to get to their soccer complex down there.â€
Maryland Heights officials haven’t given up. They’re looking at other options — possibly property tax abatement or a Community Improvement District that can levy a special sales tax — to help developers pay for infrastructure they think could manage the stormwater.
“It’d be irresponsible not to,†Moeller said. “We’ve got to somehow figure out a way to control that stormwater that comes in there, keep it from flooding Creve Coeur Park and all the roadways and businesses that are down there.â€
Though this was the first time a city had a TIF proposal blocked by a commission vote, Klahr, the attorney, said area counties’ new clout on TIF commissions had already begun to push cities toward other development incentives, such as Community Improvement Districts.
“You’ve seen far less tax increment financing being used in the 51ºÚÁÏ metro area,†Klahr said. “I think the reality of it is cities are using other means to try to further their redevelopment activities — tax abatement, using special taxing districts. That may be the path forward for Maryland Heights at this point.â€
Page said he’d support development that doesn’t hurt Creve Coeur park.
“The elected officials in Maryland Heights are my friends,†Page said. “They’re good people, I think, trying to do the right thing with the information they have, and we’ll continue to work together to try and address this problem.â€
Stix understands the concerns of environmental groups, but “just telling people you have to live with this water forever, that’s not a solution,†he said. He, too, thinks residential development in the valley is irresponsible, and he suspects that Maryland Heights’ $151 million TIF request was just too much, too fast.
“I guess we’re going to have to let the dust settle and see where everyone goes from there,†Stix said.
