NOB/Navy Hill: TIF and YOU (Infographics!)
This post is part of a series on the NOB/Navy Hill downtown development plan.
This week I’ve been reviewing how the Mayor and developers are planning to pay for the downtown development, including a new Richmond Coliseum.
A big part of the proposal is something called Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which uses future revenue from the project to fund construction. I’ve discussed TIF before. I’m not as skeptical about the funding mechanism as I used to be, but it has been abused/overused in other localities.
One worry I have with TIF, and with this project in general, is that it is complicated and hard for non-experts to understand. RVADirt recently hosted a “chat-and-learn” event at which VCU’s Ben Teresa did an admirable job of explaining TIF. But I still have trouble wrapping my head around how it all works. I figure others might be as confused.
So to help people understand how TIF works in this proposal, I thought I would do something different: my first-ever infographic! Technically, TWO infographics, both included below. (Click on each image to enlarge.) Part 1 explains how TIF generally works, and Part 2 covers how TIF would be used in the Navy Hill proposal. These may OVER-simplify a complicated funding mechanism, but I hope they help readers come away with a better understanding of TIF, and how TIF would work for the arena project.
If you have trouble reading the infographics, download them here:
Next time: let’s talk about something simpler, like race and gentrification.