The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Now is the time for significant change! Something is in the air! People are in the streets demanding resources be redirected to serving our very basic needs, such as housing!
Gentrification perpetuates systemic racism and over-policing in cities. We, who are trying to struggle against the gentrification of our barrios, need to seize this moment!
Governments do not pay taxes on property they own. The GPLET, or Government Property Lease Excise Tax, is the mechanism the government utilizes to transfer that benefit to a private developer. Current GPLETs do not contain any measures that require Tucson to track the benefits that developers promised in exchange for receiving the property tax abatement. Therefore, the community never really knows if it actually received more in benefits than the developer received in tax breaks.
It’s time we demand and fight for something substantial and real such as a moratorium on GLPETs by the City of Tucson and the City of South Tucson.
We have learned that in virtually all cities, the monied interests that benefit from gentrification are aided and supported by local jurisdictions. From the destruction of Barrio Viejo in the ’60s until the present, the City of Tucson has fomented gentrification through GPLETs, the street car, the purple shirt security guys from the Downtown Partnership and all at the expense of low-income communities and local small businesses.
The city has been and is the gentrifier, so why don’t we, concerned people of Tucson, deal with this reality?
The city is doing what it always does when a hot issue lands on its doorstep. It forms a committee to act like it cares. These committees use up the time and energy of people who are committed to creating positive change. The power of committees is only that they can make recommendations to the mayor and council. My experience is that, oftentimes, the council really doesn’t care about or follow the recommendations of committees.
The Barrio Neighborhood Coalition was promised in June of 2019 by the Tucson city manager that the mayor and council would form an anti-displacement, anti-gentrification committee. The city is now saying they are accepting applications to re-start their dormant City Housing Commission.
Maybe one reason they have stalled for a full year is our insistence that the committee members be appointed by affected barrios, not by the city manager and council members. I have heard it said there is an unwritten rule in local government: “Don’t ever create a committee you can’t totally control.”
Justice is always about the money — about redirecting it away from the wealthy and toward the common good.
Instead of worrying about a worthless city committee, let’s propose and fight for a moratorium on GLPETs (and all tax giveaways) in Tucson and South Tucson.
Now is the time to get real and seize the moment!
