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CHICAGO-A long-neglected South Side neighborhood is in line for $26.7 million in tax increment financing, which some West Englewood property owners and community leaders consider to be too little, and a bit late. Meanwhile, residents and property owners are skeptical about tax increment financing, questioning how much of the financial benefits will be reaped by those already in the 495-acre area.

Chip Hastings of the Department of Planning and Development says tax increment financing is intended to help encourage commercial development along Ashland Avenue, 59th and 63rd streets as well as increase the amount of affordable housing. Also, infrastructure will be improved, he adds, in the area bounded roughly by 53rd and 69th streets, Racine and Hamilton avenues. Most of the $26.7 million will come from new property taxes generated by development of roughly 1,000 vacant lots in the area, Hastings says. The tax increment financing plan was endorsed by the community development commission.

Businesses left West Englewood in the 1970s, recalls James Capraro, as the surrounding area was besieged in a wave of foreclosures. The executive director of the Greater Southwest Development Corp. blames "block-busting realtors" for putting the neighborhood, along with the Roseland community further south, on the top of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's list for the highest foreclosure rate.