Archive for May, 2010
“Makin’ the ‘hood look good”
NAIOP board member Whitney Peyton reflects on his experience volunteering at the May 15 West Broadway Cleanup Event with Catalyst Community Partners.
I had the opportunity to participate in the morning work session with 40-50 NAIOP folks, as well as, 75-100 folks from the immediate community. Our goal was to clean up West Broadway from a trash/graffiti/poster perspective, in the area between the Mississippi River and the Robbinsdale border. The teams met at Lyndale and West Broadway, and were dispatched to the five or ten-block quadrants. We removed graffiti, picked up trash, took unwanted posters down, painted sign posts, fireplugs, and stop lights. The transformation that occurred in a couple of hours, between the efforts of the NAIOP and the local neighborhood folks, was dramatic. The program was followed by a luncheon supported by MAD Dads, a group focused on mentoring and assuring healthy development of families; a band was playing, and the neighborhood was rockin’!
For those who participated, we made a tremendous difference in a very short period of time. It was extremely heartening to see the kids and adults from the neighborhood involved in the process. For those who did not participate, you missed an incredible opportunity for “makin’ the hood look good.”
The Way Forward: Comprehensive Government Redesign
While Minnesota’s fiscal situation has been unraveling, a handful of legislators have been working hard to put the state’s Humpty Dumpty budget back together again, with fresh ideas about how government can—and must–be redesigned. Some of those ideas were on the table at a recent meeting of a special task force of NAIOP’s Public Policy Committee, where invited guests Senator Terri Bonoff and Senator Ann Rest, both acknowledged moderates, discussed their plans for fundamentally re-inventing the way in which the state delivers essential services.
Senator Rest: We have been searching for economies, ways to share expenses and services, as well as benefits. However, whenever change is discussed, there is always pushback. It’s amazing to me how much tradition —“we’ve always done it this way”— drives the future. I have always believed that innovation is the key, but the resistance to change within government is really strong. And reinforcing that is the fact that, until now, there has been no compelling reason for change on the part of either government or legislators.
Federal Legislation Targets Carried Interest
Senators are currently considering federal legislation that would more than double the taxes on carried interest received by general partners in real estate partnerships. Carried interest would no longer be taxed as capital gains at 15 percent, but as ordinary income at rates as high as 35 percent.
The proposed change to the tax characterization of carried interest will be a significant drag on commercial real estate development if it goes forward, says Larry Pobuda, partner at the Minnesota-based Stewart Lawrence Group and NAIOP Corporate Chairman. “One of the core principles of commercial real estate industry is its entrepreneurialism and willingness to take risks,” he says. “Changing carried interest would limit the rewards for such risk-taking”.
Announcing the Nexus Project, a joint research project of NAIOP and the Minnesota Taxpayers Association
Nexus Project Mission Statement: The Nexus Project will conduct an analysis of the critical relationship between local spending decisions, local government cost drivers, the processes by which budgeting decisions are made, influences at the state level, and the combined effect on the levels of property taxes.
Read the project executive summary
Read the project 2010 workplan
