Recently, Open Play submitted a request to be considered for a TIF (Tax Increment Financing) for the new pickle/padel club the owner is currently constructing beside Fairview Estates.
My interpretation of a TIF (and clearly I could be wrong) is that a TIF is an “incentive” used to attract businesses to locate in one’s town, rather than another. This decision is made because the town’s people believe there is some benefit to the town and/or residents by having the business in town. I credit the promoter for having the chutzpah to request a TIF from Hopkinton in mid-construction! The granting of a TIF requires several steps, culminating in an affirmative vote at a Town Meeting.
I have asked Town Hall for any history of prior TIF agreements Hopkinton may have granted, and I still eagerly await that information. The TIF granted to Lykan BioScience LLC in 2019 is a public document, readily available, and quite, in my opinion, generous. By now, according to that TIF agreement, there should be 125 new employees at Lykan (though there is nothing in the agreement stipulating that they be residents of Hopkinton), and Lykan should be paying approximately 50% of the taxes it would otherwise now owe the town.
Open Play is now offering a limited number of memberships at $120/month for pickleball and $189/month for both pickle and padel. Clearly this club is not a place for we hoi polloi. I suggest we hoi polloi, who already, according to town CFO Kyla LaPierre, face a “not good outlook” given Hopkinton’s impending financial situation, write or call our Select Board and tell the members not to even consider offering a TIF to Open Play.
— Ed Harrow, Hopkinton
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Respectfully, this private employer may not dictate a specific town an employee must reside in. To suggest that the employees would sign a work contract (invalid by design), stipulating they live here is naive.
This is still the USA with a Constitution. I have never heard of a TIF, or any other agreement, codifying workers to a single hometown.
I would love to see the town incentivize more businesses to come here. Not through taxes, but by being welcoming and not so difficult to get anything through.
It is UnAmerican to treat employees so poorly. Perhaps they cannot afford this affluent town. This is a very real problem for millions of Americans. All of the other comments, designed to discourage businesses coming here to expand the tax base, are also short sighted.
This is a private company. Hopkinton cannot, should not, and has no business getting into how a business operates as suggested above. Hopkinton has no business setting prices, speculating on success or failure, or setting housing regulations. It is arrogant to think we could do this in the United States where Entrepreneurship and personal freedom drive our country.
As a follow-up to the above comments (and I agree with some points) I suggest:
I disagree with the idea of the tax-paying residents of Hopkinton subsidizing a business, especially after the owner has already selected Hopkinton as a place for the business.
Further, in response to such a tax-payer funded subsidy, yes, I expect some benefit to accrue to the Town.
It’s time to ask if the town should forego incremental tax collections in the near term with the current financial alert the town has received. I believe I heard town budget needs are going to exceed allowable taxation in the next few years. A TIF in the town’s financial outlook may not be financially wise since it delays receiving any incremental real estate tax for several years. We should also expect that an entrepreneurial business plan includes paying taxes. In this case, to size this, it is in the vicinity of $70,000 dollars of incremental tax revenue in the first year for the new $5.5 million building. The TIF giveaways are permanent (and no equity given to the town i.e., Intel’s deal). In the future, when the TIF contract ends it’s also important to realize that going forward the new building will be fully taxable and at that time the town will receive full tax revenue. That response to the residency of employees was only addressing the prior TIF that did include wording to give priority, if possible, to qualified town residents. In either case, how does any employee salary assist in payback of TIF taxes given away? It’s good for regional labor growth metrics. For the near term I strain to see how the town can forego possibly hundreds of thousands of tax dollars depending on contract terms, when the town needs it most in the next few years.