Editorial “I Got a Secret” opines: “The phrase ‘pig in a poke’ keeps coming to mind in reading about the School District of Lancaster Board’s recent vote to give a $54,000 tax break to … well, no one knows. … If a firm wants tax incentives, the company should have to identify itself in advance, so elected officials know whom and what they’re voting for.”
WATCHDOG: Two wags of the tail. This is the second case whereby sites of huge value to private enterprises have been given public subsidies for no apparent sound development reason whatsoever. The first was the Watt & Shand Building that, given time, would have become a mix use development of condominiums, retail and parking that would have required no tax payer subsidies (let alone about $150 million!) and contributed to the tax rolls. Moreover it would have energized downtown and triggered gentrification to the 100 and 200 blocks of South Queen Street and ultimately further south.
The Stockyard property is perhaps the last prime real estate in the City, walking distance to the railroad station and readily accessible from Rt. 30, Oregon and Lititz Pikes. It was the original recommended location for a smaller convention center and is an ideal location for offices and retail sales. Of course developers will plead for subsidies. But the School District of Lancaster can hardly afford to give them nor, especially in this case, is there any economic reason to do so.
PSP and/or High Industries are probably involved in some way…..always looking to profit at the expense of taxpayers.
It’s not the same at all. it’s found money, not lost money–a total of $450,000 annually.
Found money?!? I really hope you don’t mean the downtown Lancaster hotel and convention center. The convention center pays nothing at all to taxpayers. Nada. Zip. In fact, it costs Lancaster City taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in traffic control alone.
The “private” hotel is SUPPOSED to be paying $200,000 a year for payments in lieu of taxes. The problem is, all this money goes to the owner of the hotel building, the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Lancaster (which receives no rent from the hotel). According to Lancaster City officials, $100,000 (half) of this money is donated to the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, which is supposed to forward it to the Lancaster City Police to help pay for overtime which results from special events. The problem is, there is no record anywhere in Lancaster City’s budget (available online) of this money being received.
There is no information available about what RACL does with the $100,000 it keeps.
Actually the developer involved is known and frankly is an upstanding man. (I met him at a citizen meeting he held during the Target development which he owns) Lancaster City is competing for an out-of-state business that is to bring 175-200 white collar jobs. Surprise, surprise, the costs in the city are much higher than even the surrounding townships!
This developer is use to doing retail and when city father’s insisted he instead make a business park, he agreed.
The business is weighing several options and at several locations and understandable want to keep things quiet until a decision is made. Interestingly Greenfield (Dale High’s business park) is one of the sources of competition. The hotel/convention center was suppose to fix the problem that High helped created by doing the business park out on several farms east of the city.