Lenexa approves TIF financing for luxury apartments

Last week, officials in Lenexa broke ground on a new luxury apartment and office complex called the Lofts at City Center.

The $14 million project is part of a massive development near 87th Street and Renner Road. The 67 apartments, to be finished next year, will be pricey — roughly $2,200 a month for a two-bedroom unit. For that kind of money, builders say, you get 21st-century cool: a fitness center, a courtyard, high speed Wi-Fi.

But cool costs money, and the Lofts will use all the tools of modern development. Builders will get tax increment financing — in the first five years of the deal, all of the higher taxes from the site will go back to the project, much of it to pay for parking. Developers can use something called industrial revenue bonds to exempt building materials from sales taxes. The lack of affordable housing isn’t just a crisis in Kansas City. By one estimate, one in four Johnson County residents is burdened by excessive housing costs — that is, rents or mortgages that exceed 30 percent of income. High housing costs are huge hurdles for young teachers, retail clerks, blue-collar workers and others.

In Lenexa, one in 10 homeowners — and one-third of all renters — face excessive housing costs, according to a 2016 housing needs assessment.