posted by Mike Madison at 10:39 AM /
In this month's Mt. Lebanon magazine, commissioner David Humphreys defends the TIF proposed for the Zamagias project at the corner of Washington and Bower Hill Roads.
This line caught my eye:
Only if the residents have large earned incomes, though, right? Is there any reason to assume that 70 super-priced condo units will go to high income folks who work for a living? The municipality could try to impose an earned income threshold on potential condo buyers, but that would be both a bad idea -- and illegal.
As others have stated repeatedly, if the project is a profitable to the developer even without a TIF, then Mt. Lebanon could collect all of these high EITs without giving away real estate tax revenue.
This line caught my eye:
One of the reasons a condominium project is desirable is that the residents would pay a large earned income tax annually.
Only if the residents have large earned incomes, though, right? Is there any reason to assume that 70 super-priced condo units will go to high income folks who work for a living? The municipality could try to impose an earned income threshold on potential condo buyers, but that would be both a bad idea -- and illegal.
As others have stated repeatedly, if the project is a profitable to the developer even without a TIF, then Mt. Lebanon could collect all of these high EITs without giving away real estate tax revenue.
3 Comments:
Not only does Commissioner Humphreys leap to the conclusion that these units will add additional earned income taxes, but he also jumps way out into the future siting the transfer tax collected when units are resold. The aren't even build yet (and with any luck they won't be using a TIF) but this is one of the arguments he uses to justify the project!
Sometimes growth is good. In this case, I believe it is.
Right now it is empty. Adding people who have enough money to spend a half a million dollars on an apartment cannot hurt the area.
anonymous is right about one thing; adding people who can afford to spend half a million dollars on a 'condo' cannot hurt, however why should you and I subsidize a for-profit company and those who can afford to buy these units?
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