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| Natarus wants residents excluded from
downtown tax hike
Sun Times BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter Advertisement An influential alderman offered Tuesday to support a downtown property tax increase under three conditions: the increase is modest and earmarked for tourism and beautification beyond Millennium Park; it covers the entire Central Business District; and residential property owners are exempt. "If they want to tax the businesses for beautification . . . and the businesses vote for it . . . that's fine with me. But I won't go for anything that has to do with residents," said Ald. Burton F. Natarus (42nd), who represents the downtown area. "It's sort of hypocritical. We just went down to the state Legislature and got a ceiling of 7 percent on residential [assessments]. Now, if we come along and impose another tax on residents, what are they gonna say? It's another tax." The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago (BOMA) has argued that residents cannot legally be exempt, setting the stage for a protracted court fight. Mayor Daley wants to expand a so-called "special service area" confined to State Street to a much broader area that would cover the entire Loop. It could potentially stretch from Grand Avenue to Roosevelt Road and from Lake Michigan all the way to the Kennedy Expy., sources said. Whether residents or businesses alone would pay the new levy -- at a rate of .025 percent of equalized assessed valuation -- is still a "hot topic" at City Hall. State Street property owners from Wacker to Congress who've been paying that tax for years could see their rates lowered when the boundaries are broadened. New busway possible Revenue generated by the massive taxing district, under the mayor's plan, would be used to solve a major problem: how to finance the $7.4 million-a-year cost of operating and maintaining Millennium Park. Other possible expenditures include a new busway underneath Clinton Street and other transportation improvements; tenant retention, attraction and marketing; and seasonal programs at the Daley Center and other plazas. BOMA is dead-set against the idea of being stuck with the tab for Millennium Park. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is "willing to come to the table and discuss absorbing more taxes" only if it gets a mass transit system to whisk commuters from West Loop train stations to State Street and Michigan Avenue. On Tuesday, Natarus argued that, in order to build a replacement for Daley's now-defunct Central Area Circulator, the tax would have to be sky high. And he argued that beautification alone was worth the price. "Somebody's got to pay for it," he said
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