How strange. When I wrote my post about using Binford Middle School as a model tax credit renovation project, I had no idea Paul Goldman, the former political consigliere to our ex-Mayor Douglas Wilder, was coming out with a Back Page piece in Style Weekly on essentially the same topic.
[NOTE: Very frustrating, but I cannot get the Back Page piece to link. So you need to go to the Style Weekly Home Page and click on the "Opinion" tab on the top, then click on the link to the article titled "The $200M Glitch." There is a cute picture of a Band-Aided piggy bank wearing a graduation cap. That's the article.]
Hmmm......what does this mean? Strange coincidence, that is for sure, especially since I've never met Mr. Goldman. But I think it's great that other people are thinking about the same thing, a way to save Richmond's amazing old school buildings. Here are the benefits, to my way of thinking:
- Restore important public architecture;
- Meet the FEDERAL, COURT-MANDATED obligations to bring non-compliant schools into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") requirements;
- Give school children the best possible learning environment;
- Be true to the environmental principles of "recycle and reuse" by renovating, rather than building new; and
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Strengthen neighborhoods by investing public dollars in one of the most important neighborhood anchors there can be - the local community schools.
Now, Mr. Goldman made the point that the existing tax credit laws would prevent the use of the rehabilitation tax credit program to renovate a school if the purpose of the property post-renovation remains the same. The specific provision is IRS Code Section 168(h)(1)(B)(ii). I haven't researched the legal provision yet, but assuming the analysis to be correct, I agree with Mr. Goldman - the restriction doesn't make any sense. A private developer could renovate Binford into condominiums or apartments, using the tax credit program incentives, but the City couldn't qualify for those same incentives if it renovated the property to be a state-of-the-art school, while respecting the historic character of the building? If that's the case, that provision of the law NEEDS to be changed, and ASAP. Why should federal and state tax dollars be available to private developers for private profit-generating projects, and not to localities and municipalities for projects that advance the PUBLIC benefit?
We need to figure this out, and lobby hard for any changes to the law necessary. Who's on board?
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