East Lansing City Council approved 3-2 on Tuesday night a tax-capture agreement that will increase the revenue share for the developer of Trowbridge Village.
River Caddis Development Group LCC, the company in charge of the redevelopment of Trowbridge Plaza, will capture 65 percent of the increased tax revenue while the city will capture 35 percent.
According to the original plan, the developers would have captured 50 percent of the taxes, and the city would have retained 50 percent.
The developer later asked for a higher TIF, or tax increment financing, due to a mistake made by the city and the developer in the tax assessment.
Beier said the error is the developer’s fault, not the city's.
“It’s not the city's job to bail you out for making a mistake,” Beier said.
On his Facebook page, East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett said “I voted ‘yes’ on the proposed amendment to the plan to put both the City and the applicant in the approximate position that we expected and agreed to when the brownfield plan was originally approved.”
Beier said she thought Triplett was going to vote against the amended plan.
“(Triplett) is a smart man and he uses his intelligence usually to make decent and reasonable arguments and decisions, but sometimes he uses his intelligence to twist an argument, to make it tricky,” Beier said.
East Lansing resident Jeff Lapinski voiced his disapproval of the amendment plan before the city voted. Lapinski left City Hall immediately after the decision was made.
“We had an agreement here, it was in paper,” Lapinski said. “The developer agreed to it, the city agreed to it. I think we should hold to that agreement.”
Lapinski said the approval would send a negative message to future developers.
“Maybe (developers) get the message that ‘hey, don’t worry about it, you can sign now and we’ll fix it tomorrow.’”
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