When did Lee's Summit become such a horrible place?

A few years ago a co-worker was lamenting to me about his outrageous property taxes. He had just built a new house in Lee's Summit. Apparently many, many people were doing the same. The result? A population explosion that quickly pushed existing schools past capacity. New schools had to be built to meet the demand. New schools meant higher taxes. Such is the price of progress. Now I find out that a developer looking to build a City Walk project in Lee's Summit is not just seeking TIF, but Super TIF. He wants Lee's Summit to pick up a third of the $300 million tab. I'm failing to make the connection that a community that is growing so fast it can't keep up with education capacity is a risk to develop in. I would think any developer would love a chance to build in a city with an exploding population. At least that's what I learned in school. Maybe we skipped the chapter that explains why that's so risky? The Kansas City Business Journal says "Plans call for the project near U.S. Highway 50 and Missouri Highway 291 to build 230,000 square feet of retail space in its first phase. A second phase would add almost 650,000 square feet. No tenants have been announced." Ahh good ol' Phase II! Beware Phase II folks. I've warned you about this before. That's the phase with all the cool stuff that makes TIF Commissions ooh and ahh. Unfortunately Phase II rarely gets built. At least Lee's Summit's Planning Department has some common sense. They looked at the plan and recommended it be denied by the city's TIF Commission. Maybe the department head was in my same Commercial Real Estate Development class and missed the same chapter? We really should see about getting a tuition refund. Of course Lee's Summit's TIF Commission, like our own, has never met a subsidy they didn't like and ignored the Planning Department's recommendation and sent the plan to their council with a recommendation of Do Pass. I imagine that's because citizen appointees know much more about commercial real estate development and city planning than say... City Planners? Where does it end? TIF is a fantastic tool. But it was meant to spur economic development, not maintain it. The idea is one TIF project is enough to make a once undesirable area into a far less risky proposition for future developers. It wasn't meant to be a "He got some TIF so I want some too! It's not fair! It's not fair! I want TIF!" type proposition. If 50 Hwy & 291 is a bad place to develop, than maybe we should all just pack it in.