Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts are areas where property tax revenues above the amount collected when the district was established are diverted into separate funds that can only be used to pay for projects that fulfill goals outlined in a redevelopment plan.
They skim the property tax revenue from all property value increases in that district (that’s the “increment” in TIF). In Chicago they’ve been used to pay for new school construction, big box stores, affordable housing, and the Wintrust Arena. The funds have also been used to help small businesses to expand and hire more local workers as well as retrain workers. In local infrastructure, the funds have paid for road resurfacing, bike lanes, and Divvy stations.
Now, a new feature on Chicago Cityscape lets you see what percentage of your property’s taxes are being diverted into a TIF district (provided your property is in a TIF district).
When you look up an address on Address Snapshot, you’ll need to select one of the properties (also called a PIN) in the “Property Info” table to be able to see the stat.
Chicago Cityscape needs to know the specific property’s PIN in order to determine the tax code and then look it up in the Cook County Clerk’s “Tax Increment Agency Distribution Summary”.
Address Snapshot will also tell you how much money the TIF district earned in 2016.
The percentage of property taxes collected into the TIF varies from a few percent to all of it. In Chicago, 359 property owners pay 100 percent of their taxes into into five TIF districts, which collected $1.88 million in 2016.
More info
- Read more about TIFs from Civic Lab’s TIF Illumination Project.
- You can see some TIF-funded projects in Chicago on the TIF map.
Neighborhood news
Block Club Chicago launched Wednesday morning. The new news organization is staffed by all former DNAinfo Chicago reporters and editors. Congratulations to BCC!
Here are relevant stories:
- Congress Theater renovations gets a nearly $10 million TIF grant
- $2 million renovation of an historic Wicker Park mansion
Reporters who write about neighborhood property development, and related stories about transit and housing, in Chicago, can get a free Cityscape Pro membership to assist them in their reporting, in exchange for a link back to the site as a citation.