Brilliant minds have once again concluded a really good way to realize prosperity is to tax resources from the private sector and put them in overhead. Consultants contracted by the City of Hendersonville recommend expanding the reach of the twelve-cent assessment known as the Historic Seventh Avenue District. Adding thirty-six properties to the municipal service district is expected to double revenues – for government, not those who pay. Those who pay will enjoy those phantasmagoric indirect and induced multipliers somewhere in our dreams.
Problems motivating the predation included, “lack of consolidated ownership,” the” lack of a gateway to the district,” and “blighted housing.” There is also interest in acquiring an urban redevelopment area designation to turn the area into a little Russia. Doing so could expand the scope of the governing board and legitimize its purpose in the public eye.
If it created an urban redevelopment area, the City Council could appoint or function itself as a Redevelopment Commission to guide revitalization. Under the law, the commission could acquire and sell property to developers, grant development incentives, issue bonds to finance construction projects, encumber property with covenants to advance redevelopment goals and condemn and demolish blighted properties, the consultants said.
Let’s suppose you were a little store with drooping sales. You let your part-time assistant go because you couldn’t afford to pay her. Now, you are reducing inventory and wondering if it wouldn’t be more profitable to just go out of business. Well, you can pay the new tax, and instead of keeping products on the shelves, you can buy hanging baskets and streetscaping. You could even get a grant to improve the façade of your store to make it look like it stepped off Main Street in Disneyland.
