There are plenty of questions, the foremost being, if it's on the "verge" of being redeveloped, that would imply a taxpayer handout isn't necessary & patience would do.

I suspect the residents of east Garfield Park would be a lot happier with their schools and the CTA getting this money instead of a private development, no matter what its merits are.

This one single TIF giveaway is approx half of what the City kicks into the CTA coffers every year.

The last time I went by Lake & Kedzie - last summer - it didn't look like it was verging very aggressively. Lots of vacant land and not much else.

The development will, at least, be just steps away from the El and may spur some further development in the area.

I swung by just this morning - the train station is still bordered on all four sides by vacant lots. With snow everywhere, I couldn't even identify the Kedzie GreenLife plot.

East Garfield needs help, there is no way developers are on the verge of rushing in at this point. This is what the TIF funds were originally designed for, not entire blocks of Loop real estate to be given away to politically - connected developers.

TIF funds were designed for burned-out neighborhoods, areas with heavy metals in the soils due to past industrial use, areas that for various reasons would never recover without a boost.

I go through that area plenty, and it does not qualify (sure it's more appropriate than using TIF funds in the Loop, but that's not saying much).

The development may be slower than some would like, but it's happening all by itself.

Whatever happened to the wisdom of letting the marketplace sort these things out?

Take that 2.5 million bucks of public money and give it back to the public by putting it into the local infrastructure, then you'll have made an investment that will pay off for decades.

what is the single biggest reason Chicago has a hard time retaining the middle class? the public schools, I can't make it any clearer than that.

More TIF programs are just more heroin to a junkie. it's time to get the developers to kick the habit, as the side effects of political corruption and cronyism are not worth the benefit by a long shot.

Carter,

How long is it going to take for Chicagoans to learn that nothing significant will be done to improve the public schools? There are some isolated success stories, to be sure, but overall the system remains a disaster.

I don't see East Garfield Park improving on its own motion. The demand simply isn't there to change an area of that size without a jump-start from its current state. Whether the effort should be made is, as you note, a legitimate question.

It is a broken system, no doubt.

But to get it on the road to recovery is going to require throwing some cash at it, and that can't happen with TIFs draining our municipal coffers. right now it's somewhat like a fracture that was never set properly - it needs complete and total upheaval, combined with a lot more resources.