Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ At the end of 2014 the North Carolina State Budget pulled the plug on the ugly and abusive history of Historic Preservation Tax Credits in North Carolina. Former Speaker Tillis said the Historic Preservation Tax Credit is inconsistent with the Republican’s tax reform plan which aims to spur economic development and level the playing field by lowering tax rates across the board and getting rid of loopholes for specific industries or business sectors.
Observers of the Historic Preservation Tax Credit have long noted its many abuses across the state as a free cash cow for non profit organizations making a buck on the taxpayer’s back. Favored non profit “historic” organizations may use these tax credits to “rehab” buildings of questionable history and play the “renovate and recycle game”.
Here are some of the many Historic Preservation Tax Credit abuses all of which can be observed in Salisbury, N.C. where corruption and cronyism are at high tide.
• Extremely wealthy families (multimillionaires in some cases) are treated to hefty tax credits to gussy up their manses at great taxpayer expense. Should taxpayers be bled to pay for Big Daddy’s hobby?
• Many of these alleged “historic” houses have no actual history other than appearing on an “historic register” based on arbitrary aesthetic values so historic preservation renovators can score some bucks at great taxpayer expense.
• Quite often historic preservation is employed as a covert gentrification weapon to chase out the elderly, the working poor, and those on fixed incomes by raising property taxes too high for those persons to remain. Gentrification is also combined with another covert neighborhood cleansing tactic called “shrinking” whereby a city silently cuts off important city services (Police patrol, street repair, safety lighting, proper trash pickup, sidewalks, city property upkeep, etc.) to make living in that neighborhood both arduous and dangerous. It doesn’t take acute powers of observation to notice Salisbury talking up its phony brand of diversity on one hand and working hard to cleanse a neighborhood of its “undesirable elements”. Economic segregation is alive and well in Salisbury, N.C.
• Bankers wishing to somehow get themselves off the hook for sucker loans for one decrepit downtown flophouse unopened since 1963, are scrambling for any taxpayer money they can grab to abate and renovate this useless hulk taking up space in the vacancy strewn South Main wasteland. Time for the Bat Castle to go to a landfill.
As for the historic preservation typically inflated claims of creating investment and jobs, the taxpayer is forced to hand money over to historic preservation renovators. Let private investors build modern buildings.
With Historic Preservation Tax Credit ended, more historic renovation projects will become unattractive and fall by the wayside. On the upside the ending of these much abused credits will spur the demolition of numerous decrepit and obsolete buildings, leading to healthier and more modern downtowns.
Time to protect our taxpayers from becoming aphids for historic preservation renovators.
