Really well said, twincitizen. In other words, Value Capture in this case is more or less a meaningless branding of TIF, particularly because these parcels were clearly going to have an increment due to the significant improvements on them regardless of whether a streetcar is built.The "value capture" being described in this thread is still TIF. That's what TIF does. It "captures" an expected increase in property Tax "value" and in most cases directs that increase or Increment towards the Financing of the project/district itself. Rarely is TIF used to pay for something other than the actual development from which the increased taxes are generated.
I would say that the former is more common (specifically the city bonds for infrastructural improvements related to the project, rather than the project itself), which is why this action is even more akin to TIF than Value Capture.Perhaps this is continuing to delve further off topic, but in the typical TIF that we see, does the city actually take out financing or bond for the project and then collect the taxes towards that financing, or is there just no tax collected and it is assumed that the money is going towards debt service?
Personally I think that while grabbing the increment from entirely unrelated developments is a shady practice, it's better than grabbing it from the entire length of the line in terms of tying up general fund revenue. Not sure why parking meter revenue is no longer in play though.