Students will wait a decade for benefit

Columbus taxpayers and impoverished schoolchildren will subsidize high-income housing in one of the city’s most thriving areas. A 10-year, 100 percent property-tax abatement, worth about $68 million on new housing, is to attract millennials and empty-nesters to Easton Town Center.

It also is another gift from City Hall to well-connected developers.

And it’s part of a trend that includes the complicated land swaps and interest-free loans that allowed developers to get their hands on scarce parking lots in the Short North. And the city’s purchase and costly renovation of a developer’s decrepit parking garage Downtown. Then there is the city’s plan to allow high-rise development around the popular and funky North Market, which has another coveted parking lot.

Just months ago, the public discovered its unwilling ownership of the once-private Nationwide Arena also resulted in it being taken off the tax rolls. In that situation, at least the city made a deal with Columbus City Schools to provide fractional payments.

But with the Easton tax break, the school district not only wasn’t consulted; it was kept in the dark as laws were changed and the deal structured in such a way to give it no say in the matter.

The Georgetown Co., Easton’s lead developer, is to save a projected $ 68 million, while the deal will deny the school district about $ 46 million.

In exchange, the developer is to give $ 5.75 million to the city for use in the Linden neighborhood. But $ 4.25 million of that is to be repaid to the company over 30 years through a TIF, or tax- increment- financing district. Ordinarily TIFs allow developers to pool taxes to benefit their area. But the Easton TIF will go to Linden — a legal hopscotch requiring a change in state law, done quietly. The whole thing slid though the Statehouse and was quickly blessed by Columbus City Council, leaving the school district whipsawed.

Surely, Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther knew how to reach district leaders — he once served on the Columbus Board of Education.

It appears this deal meant to cut out the district because the new “community reinvestment area” was designated as residential. Had it gotten a “commercial” designation, as is typical for large apartment complexes, state law would have required the district to be consulted and given financial leverage.

For the city of Columbus, this deal is a no- brainer. It wants the office jobs the Easton live-work development will generate. While school districts are supported by property taxes, cities rely on income taxes. This gives Columbus a perverse incentive to give away school revenues to increase its own.

At least once the abatement ends, the development is expected to generate an average of

$ 2 million a year for the district. That would come on top of the $ 8.5 million in annual property taxes that Easton currently pays.

The deal uses the relatively small pot of funding for Linden as a fig leaf of altruism. Yes, this downtrodden neighborhood needs a corporate champion. But, ideally that champion should use its own money to benefit the poor — not provide money at the expense of taxpayers.

The best way to raise up Linden would be to provide its children with a better education. But for the next decade, no help will be coming from the taxabated Easton project.