Mayor Rahm Wants To Turn Lathrop Homes Into His Next Tif Slush Fund

 For the last few months, I’ve been watching the twists and turns of the ongoing Lathrop Homes saga, waiting for the TIF shoe to drop.



      This being a TIF, the mayor generally lets us know how he’s spending the money only after he’s already spent it.



      In 2011, the CHA authorized a development group called Lathrop Community Partners to redevelop the property as a mixed-use facility, with a blend of     low-income and market-rate rental housing. (Partners is a collaboration of Related Midwest, a for-profit developer, and two nonprofit developers,     Bickerdike Redevelopment and Heartland Housing.)



      But the activists don’t trust the CHA to make good on that promise, and say they won’t sign on to any deal until the agency provides specific, legally     binding plans, with funding, to replace the housing.



      Instead, Reifman wrote of “a proposed designation or amendment of a Tax Increment Financing district in which your property or residence is located.”



      Without a TIF district, that money would go to the city, and the schools. But if the city creates a TIF district, all the taxes the developers pay—every     nickel and dime—will go to the newly created TIF fund.