REIMAGINING THE "TEAM FOUR PLAN" WITH AN EYE TOWARD COMMUNITY COLLABORATION AND PRIVATE CAPITAL.

• Author: Seim, Morgen

INTRODUCTION

On March 8, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity came together in the city of St. Louis to tour North St. Louis. (1) Recognized by many as an "historic occasion," (2) members of Congress met to discuss what is now known as the Team Four Plan, the "City Wide Implementation Strategies for the Draft Comprehensive Plan" of 1975. (3) The notorious city plan had set out to divide St. Louis into three parts, urging city officials to abandon and effectively extinguish, by way of zoning, code enforcement, and tax policies, areas of the City marked "deplet[ed]" (4) and predominantly African American. (5) Crafted in 1974, the comprehensive report has long been regarded as a citywide phantom, frequently discussed as the "secret plan" that continues to plague St. Louis politics and local construction. (6) This Note seeks to explore the historical underpinnings of the Team Four Plan by considering St. Louis's dramatic economic decline alongside a citywide panic regarding the fate of the Midwest city. Though it acknowledges Congressional efforts to stop the urban plan in its tracks, this Note suggests that the strategy of "urban triage" (7) presented by Team Four has been largely effectuated in the form of Missouri's Real Property Tax Increment Allocation Redevelopment Act, a piece of legislation initially intended to eradicate "blight" throughout the state. (8) Mimicking the effects of antiquated, race-blind policies that once functioned as a means of maintaining the notorious white "sanctuary" while exacerbating the "black urban ghetto," (9) St. Louis's transparent yet purposeful misapplication of Tax Increment Financing (TIF), typically a result of inter-municipal competition for increased tax revenue, perpetuates the city's notorious racial divide. (10) Such a strategy, this Note reveals, follows the very intentions of Team Four, advancing affluent neighborhoods while neglecting, and thereby sabotaging, low-income communities. (11) Finally, this Note recognizes the realities of a financially strapped local government; a policy of urban triage, despite its inequitable effect, proves the most rational of public tactics in light of finite public funds. Acknowledging the limited freedom of a fiscally responsible, voter-conscious municipality, this Note sets forth an alternative means of stemming "blight" throughout the St. Louis region: Social Impact Bonds. Rejecting TIF funding for its loose "blight" and "but-for" requirements, this Note emphasizes the need for public-private collaboration in furtherance of social equality and the eradication of St. Louis "blight." In so doing, this Note presents Social Impact Bonds dedicated to the redevelopment of historically neglected neighborhoods as a possible alternative to St. Louis's current strategy of urban triage.

1. THE TEAM FOUR PLAN

   1. Setting the Stage for the Team Four Plan

      In 1870, St. Louis City was booming; functioning as the St. Louis region's "locus of power and civic energy," the city held approximately $148 million in wealth tax whereas St. Louis County held a mere $14 million. (12) On August 22, 1876, in response to city voters' growing frustration with county residents' influence over urban affairs, St. Louis City opted to sever from the county in what is now known as the Great Divorce. (13) While initially understood as a triumph for urban residents, the Great Divorce proved devastating for the City of St. Louis. Squeezed between the Mississippi River to the east and the city-county divide to the west, the city overcrowded with no room to expand. (14) Meanwhile, the county was primed for success; the rail line between the city and the surrounding St. Louis towns enabled commuter development, allowing city residents to escape from the "gritty and unhealthy" nature of the city to the "new and exclusive suburbs in the county." (15) Eventually, this trend resulted in a draining cityscape. By 1936, true desolation began to emerge; city-dwellers relocated from the city into the surrounding suburbs, abandoning the "historic core" which thereafter consisted of the "black ghetto." (16)

      Alarm regarding the neglect and imminent demise of St. Louis City, however, did not set in until 1973, when the Rand Corporation published a year-long study of St. Louis. (17) The report "read like an obituary for the city," sending city officials into a "panic." (18) Though the trends that initiated the dramatic decline within St. Louis could be seen throughout the United States, the report suggested that St. Louis differed from other cities in its "rapid and absolute declines in central City population and business activity." (19) While suburbs were sprouting up around most urban areas, St. Louis proved unique in its simultaneous rate of city center abandonment. (20) According to the Rand report, this dramatic desertion resulted from several factors typical of city decline compounding in "unusual strength." (21) Like other midwestern and east coast cities, St. Louis contained a large inventory of old "housing and industrial capital" expensive to maintain and restore. (22) Further, the exorbitant amount of flat farmland outside the city, amenable to future development, made it particularly conducive to suburban flight. (23) Even more problematic, though individuals were fleeing from the city into the suburbs, the price of urban property remained consistently high. (24) With exorbitant urban property prices, hope of future reinvestment became futile. Similarly, a reduction in urban residents failed to render public goods and services more accessible: the city's wealthier families fled into the county, bringing capital and leaving an increased share of public costs with those least equipped to handle the economic burden. (25)

   2. Introducing the Team Four Plan

      Likely in an effort to revitalize the city, as well as the neighborhoods most threatened by impending "blight," including those identified throughout the Rand report, the City Plan Commission hired Team Four, Inc. as consultants in the drafting of the urban-scape's new master plan. (26) In its first set of submissions, the planning firm presented a memo entitled "City Wide Implementation Strategies for the Draft Comprehensive Plan," later recognized as the "Team Four Plan." (27) Formally submitted on March 31, 1975, the memorandum advised the city to apply three drastically different treatments to three corresponding regions. (28) In explaining the need for a dissected and thus targeted urban plan, the report highlighted the severely limited financial resources of St. Louis, emphasizing that "Federal and State Aid cannot be wasted." (29) As a solution, the Team Four Plan recommended that the City "carefully husband its resources and reap the greatest impact from its services and capital improvements." (30)

      Identified as "Conservation Areas," the first category presented by the team included St. Louis areas marked by their "ability to attract continued private reinvestment," all of which could be improved through "simple home repairs to more massive expenditures associated with the renovation of industrial properties or new commercial investments." (31) Team Four's strategy posited these areas as the foundation of the city's rejuvenation such that "the City's primary public responsibility for the future of the entire community [was] to buttress and then build upon these critical areas." (32) While the report failed to explicitly identify the geographic locations of these areas, St. Louis community members recognized "Conservation Areas" as being "concentrated in South St. Louis which had, in 1974, a majority white population." (33)

      Stressing the need for continued public investment throughout the City, the report emphasized the role "high level" public services might play in inducing local investment. (34) As such, the report highlighted the need for proper public schools, trash collection, and code enforcement, identifying zoning as a pillar of the plan's overall execution. (35) Specifically, the team advocated for these areas' continued residential and commercial land use trends, noting that the "varied neighborhood housing districts, interspersed with service commercial uses, bind the areas together." (36) Recognizing the necessity of an aesthetically pleasing environment, the Team Four Plan implored the city to implement and "enforce stricter ordinances to control the quality of the existing environment," finding enforcement to be the means by which the city might stem blight. (37)

      The second zone identified by the city planners encompassed regions within the city marked as "redevelopment areas," wherein the key objective would be to "induce on a phased basis concentrated and coordinated private investment." (38) Best characterized by their tenuous relationship to blight, these areas were identified as "those places that are at a critical point between progress and decay; [where] the future holds either the promise of reinvestment or the spectre of continued waivering [sic] and inevitable deterioration." (39) Like Conservation Areas, these areas were located in South St. Louis and included "large tracts of land in the Central Corridor of the city which was also majority white." (40) Devoid of the economic strength and community-based initiatives that typically guarantee a city's success, the target parcels required the help of government programs committed to community rejuvenation. (41) The report praised the city's use of the 353 Program as a means of supporting urban renewal areas identified as "blighted" (42) and recommended continued implementation throughout the Redevelopment Areas. (43)

      Pursuant to Chapter 353 Property Tax Abatement, real property tax abatement serves as an incentive for the city to encourage revitalization within blighted areas. (44) In endorsing the city's implementation of Chapter 353, the Team Four Plan identified Redevelopment...