06-24-2002 CC MIN - SPECIAL - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

City Council Nlinutes June 24, 2002 Page 2 5.1. Discussion with EDA on Tax Rebate Policy for Office Space Projects Director of Economic Development Catherine Mehelich stated that the City Council has directed staff to draft guidelines for review of the City's Tax Rebate Financing Policy as it relates to office development. She indicated that a recent proposal for office development has led to the need for clarification on the City's policy relating to public assistance for spectdative office developments. Catherine reviewed the legal requirements of abatement and policy issues related to office development. The Council and EDA discussed the requirement relating to job creation. Catherine noted that the proposed policy considers job creation as new jobs that have been created and not existing jobs within the city that are being relocated. Councilmember Dietz questioned the need for TRF as it has only been used once in the City for the last two years. He requested staff to provide information as to how many other cities use TRF. Councilmember Mot_in stated that he would like to see a stipulation in the policy allowing the City to review the project in two years to ensure that the applicant has met the job creadon and occupancy requirements of the TRF application, and if the requirements were not met, the applicant would be required to pay back the assistance received by the City. Discussion was held regarding whether speculative office should be included in the policy and if so, what the requirements should be. Councilmember Tveite indicated that he would be comfortable with the 50% minimum pre-leased occupied definition regarding speculative office space but would like to see minimum building sizes and minimum new job creations included in the policy. It was the consensus of the Council and EDA that there be a 25,000 square foot minimum requirement on office developments requesting TRF. Discussion was held on the location of eligible TRF office development. It was the consensus of the Council and EDA that applications be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Discussion was held regarding the design requirements in relation to Energy City. Mayor IGinzing indicated that the Energy City Committee would not be able to review all of the applications. She suggested keeping the bonus ranking points for using energy efficiency types of technology. Councilmember Kuester suggested asking the Energy City Committee to put together some guidelines necessary for receiving bonus points so that they would not have to review every application. Mayor F'&inzing indicated that the Council consensus is that speculative office space not be eligible, with the definition of speculative being less than 50 percent of the space in the building be pre-leased. She further stated that she concurs with Councilmember Tveite that the goal is to try to attract new jobs to the City with a requirement that a certain percentage of new jobs within the entire building being new to the City. It was the consensus of the Council and EDA that there be financial review of TRF applications by Ehlers and Associates. It was the consensus of the Council and EDA that the current TRF application from Elk Path LLC should be reviewed based on the City's new policy.