12-11-17 Community Investment - Laserfiche WebLink

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reading is toni ht,then it goes to Area Plan and comes back before you sometime in January. Councilmember Oliver Davis had asked for an update. Committeemember Regina Williams-Preston arrived at the meeting at 3:52 p.m. Mr. Mueller continued, We have a relatively long presentation regarding tax abatements and the administrative incentives philosophy. We recommend giving you an update on the administrative incentives and hold off on the tax abatement update until Councilmember Oliver Davis is here. Mr. Mueller then referenced the presentation (available in the City Clerk's Office). Mr. Mueller went on, When Mayor Pete was running for office in 2011,Newsweek had listed South Bend as one (1) of America's dying cities. I think it's important to keep in context that a lot of things have been going on and we have gotten a lot of momentum, but that wasn't always the case. A lot of the reason we have gotten the momentum is through the hard work and tough decisions the Council and Administration has had to make. Today I want to go through our policy goals, main development tools, a brief tax abatement strategy and finally the projects that are affected by our incentives. One (1) of the key things Community Investment is tasked with is to make sure we are growing as a City. That means growing our wage base, our municipal product, our assessed value, and our population. There are many ways we can do that. One (1) of the key questions is how we raise our per capita income. That is really a question of productivity and inclusion. I think you have seen some talks from different invited speakers the last couple years about how density is a more efficient and productive use of land. Our City limits are fixed and the more we can get out of each acre means we are being more productive with land. Another key factor is inclusion. Other priorities include place making. It is becoming more of a knowledge-based economy and is becoming more and more about people. We need to make sure we are investing in a South Bend that has a vibrant culture that attracts and retains the talent we already have as well as bringing people from the outside. We are also looking toward being longtime environmental stewards. Mr. Mueller continued, This Council knows pretty well already what our main tools are. We have Tax Incremental Financing redevelopment areas. We have the tax phases in our tax abatements. We have land,the hotel-motel tax revenue and civil city funds. Our Tax Increment Financing is when we capture the growth from the investments made in the district. He showed a slide in the presentation that depicted this formula. He went on, There is a process called the normalization process. That is if there is growth in the TIF District that occurred by other factors, not the investments, they normalize that and it would go back into the base fund. He showed a slide in the presentation that showed all things eligible for TIF funds. He continued, TIF also helps with public facilities like Fire Stations and Police Stations. If we look at our TIF expenditures over-time, some of the longer-sitting members of the Council will recognize the shift of what all the funds are going to. We are investing in our Parks, Homelessness, traditional infrastructure, our City Cemetery and affordable housing. We shifted to start funding these types of projects. Tax incentives exist to mitigate the risk to enable project financing. So when a project comes and they have a certain risk profile,they have to go to the bank and figure out how to put it all together to make it happen. Having the tax liability phase in over time can help reduce the risk and make the investors comfortable in investing. We don't live in a vacuum and 2