Laserfiche WebLink
City should develop agricultural industries as well. <br /> <br />Ms. Solomon noted that part of the greenfields were out at the airport. She opined it did not make sense, <br />given the level of investment the City had made in the airport, to limit development around it. She observed <br />that many airports were surrounded by industrial zones and those zones were desirable areas to develop in <br />because of the proximity to air transportation. Regarding brownfield redevelopment, she pointed out that <br />such areas were more expensive build upon and this hindered smaller businesses. <br /> <br />Ms. Solomon said the question for her was not why the City should have an enterprise zone, but why not. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling asserted that the City needed to make the application process as simple as possible following <br />State guidelines. He urged the council to do it now so that if it was not granted in this year, the City would <br />be in the queue and would be prepared so that the application could be resubmitted. <br /> <br />Regarding the portion of money small businesses received, Mr. Poling stressed that smaller businesses may <br />have received less of the overall amount of money in incentives, but they also contributed less in tax <br />revenue. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap6 ventured that $10,000 or $20,000 to a smaller company might mean more in the long run than <br />$500,000 in incentives to a larger company. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman wished to point out that excluding greenfields from the zone did not preclude development. <br />Rather, she said, it only precluded the potential development from receiving incentives. She asserted that <br />when the City provided an incentive, it was foregone revenue for City services and schools. She thought it <br />important to use it as a tool, but advised that it be leveraged in a way that provided the maximum public <br />benefit with it. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling referred to page 164 of the AlS and underscored that the City spent no money on private <br />development projects. The enterprise zone only provided a tax exemption that would eventually provide tax <br />revenues on new development. He wished to emphasize that without the development, one had an empty lot <br />that generated tax revenue at a much lower rate. <br /> <br />Ms. Solomon added that the exemption was only given to the portion of the business that was expanding. <br />Mr. Braud affirmed that nothing that was on the tax rolls came off. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman said the boundaries in the motion she planned to place on the table would not have excluded <br />the majority of the businesses that benefited from the tax breaks. <br /> <br />Responding to concerns regarding the inclusion of crime statistics, Mr. Braud explained that the State <br />required hardship criteria as part of the application. He said while crime was a hardship, it was not <br />necessary to include that set of the statistics in the application. <br /> <br />Regarding concerns about the focus on manufacturing jobs, Mr. Braud stated that it was one of the higher <br />paying sectors of employment. He underscored that one of the reasons the community had a wage issue was <br />that it had lost some of its manufacturing jobs. <br /> <br />MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 16, 2005 Page 4 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br /> <br />