Agency OK’d for tax credits

• By GREG GARLAND
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 10, 2009 - Page: 1B

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An arm of the city-parish’s redevelopment authority has been approved for $60 million in federal tax credits to help spur investment and development in low-income areas of the parish, Mayor President Kip Holden announced Monday.

The tax-credit program will be used to help new businesses get started and to develop energy-efficient, affordable housing in blighted areas, Holden said.

He said the five neighborhoods initially targeted for the  program are Scotlandville, Zion City, the Choctaw Drive Corridor, Northdale and Melrose East.

“These tax credits will be a tremendous boost to our community improvements plan,” the mayor said.

He said other cities have used them successfully to spur private development.

Walter Monsour, president of the quasi-public East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority, said the program is administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

The program gives investors federal income tax credits for investing in businesses and real estate development projects in qualifying, low-income areas, he said.

Monsour said a for-profit group, the East Baton Rouge Parish Community Development Entity, had to be created to apply for the allocation of tax credits.

Monsour is the group’s executive director; it will be governed by the same board of directors that oversees the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority.

The board consists of LSU Chancellor Emeritus Bill Jenkins, businessman John Noland, lawyer Van Mayhall, landscape architect Susan Turner and retired university administrator Huel Perkins.

Monsour said the $60 million in tax credits serve as a way to “assume some of the risks” of investing in projects in blighted areas.

He said they can be sold to corporations that want to reduce their tax liability, or used by lenders investing in revitalization efforts.

“We have a tremendous amount of discretion as to how we can put this money to work,” Monsour said.