The City of Wauwatosa has been active in recent months using a key financing tool to spur redevelopment projects, the latest being a small housing development on a long-vacant parcel on a prominent corner in Tosa Village.
The Common Council's Financial Affairs Committee voted, 6-1, on April 14 to recommend this latest agreement, which would use tax increment financing to provide $880,000 to the developer JJH3group to build four townhouses and 10 apartments on a "very tough" quarter acre of land at 7746 Menomonee River Parkway, just north of the Harmonee Avenue bridge.
"I think this site needs TLC, and it's going to get it," James Moldenhauer, the committee chair, said before the vote. "Right now we have nothing, we're going to have something. We've been waiting a long time." The agreement advances to the full Common Council for a vote on April 28.
Tax increment financing, or TIF, is a tool that the state provides to municipalities to use the anticipated gains in property taxes on new developments within the TIF district to cover a variety of eligible expenses, from infrastructure improvements to direct developer payments.