Atlantic City’s government officials are facing state intervention because of a budget deficit – which is why it hurts the city more to have half of Casino Reinvestment Development Authority-owned land sitting idle. With no construction date in sight or even a project assigned, the parcels of land are leaving Atlantic City with much untaxable land.
CRDA has 139 parcels of land that remain undeveloped because of its strategy to stockpile on land even without an assigned development plan and because of the recent economic crisis that hit the real estate market the hardest. If all of these CRDA land, regardless if developed or not, are taxable then Atlantic City will be receiving additional $5.4 million in taxes. This will be enough to offset the city’s budget deficit amounting to $10 to $15 million.
City Mayor Lorenzo Langford, who also holds a seat on the CRDA board, has expressed frustrations about the authority-owned lands as early as May when the Office of the State Controller issued an audit and charged the city government with wasting millions of dollars. In a reply to that audit, Langford gave eight recommendations to the state, one of which is a complaint on CRDA’s tax-exempt land. In the same reply, though, Langford did not offer solutions to the CRDA issues.
Other political candidates in Atlantic City have also complained about the CRDA lands throughout the years. Only a few of them, though, have offered recommendations for change.
Some of the CRDA-owned parcels of land that are currently undeveloped, tagged by officials as “vintage parcels”, date as far back as 1988. And the 139 tracts do not even include the land dedicated for the South Inlet Transportation Improvement Project and the Mississippi Avenue Widening Project, which will only start construction this coming October though some of the land has been purchased in 1989, 1999, and 2002.
Former CRDA spokesman Dan Douglas, coming into the authority’s defense, say that Atlantic City is 1,000 acres big and the land being complained about is only 7 acres. This means that though the value exceeds $20 million, this is just $350,000 in uncollectable tax – if the tax rate is projected at $1.75 per $100 of assessed property value. Douglas also reiterates that CRDA has completed lots of projects that benefitted the city, like the outlet stores at The Walk and the redevelopment of the city’s previously blighted Northeast Inlet.
“You have to look at the big picture. There are a lot more projects that we have delivered on, and there are some things we just can’t control,” Douglas says.