All right.

Good afternoon.

It is June 1st.

The time is 1 p.m.

We're calling the Economic Development Committee meeting to order.

Can I get a motion for approval of the minutes?

There's a motion for approval and a second.

Any corrections.

Seeing none, all in favor.

Motion minutes are approved.

We are will now go into recess and return at approximately 2 45.

Thank you.

All right.

The time is now 2 48 and we are back in session.

First briefing item, briefing item A.

Thank you, Chairman.

Honorable members of the Economic Development Committee.

I am Kevin Spath, the director of the Office of Economic Development.

And to my right is Heather Lapesca, Deputy Director.

So this will be the third and final time.

We'll discuss opportunity zones 2.0.

Today we're presenting a list of recommended census tracts for nomination to the economic development and tourism office within the governor's office for possible designation as opportunity zones pursuant to the opportunity zone program, otherwise known as Opportunity Zones 2.0 as administered by the U.S.

Department of Treasury.

So at this point, I'll turn it over to Miss Lapesca to walk us through the presentation.

Thank you.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So as Kevin mentioned, we've discussed this previously in April and May.

Staff is developing a list of recommended census tracts for this committee's approval prior to submission to the governor's office for consideration of opportunity zones under the OZ 2.0 program.

Each governor may nominate 25% of the state's eligible census tracts to Treasury for consideration.

And in Texas, the Texas uh the governor's office has created a structured nomination process which requires detailed information on each track submitted that will be reviewed on a 10-point scale by the governor's office with four points designated for project viability, which includes shovel readiness, four points for local support, which includes alignment with city plans, incentives, and programs, and then the remaining two points are awarded for geographic balance with one point for rural tracks, which the city of Dallas won't qualify for, and one point for declared disaster within the last three years, which the city would qualify for.

So on that 10-point scale, the city could maximize nine points.

Over the past two months, OED has been working to refine the list of eligible census tracts from the US Department of Treasury's eligible list to a reduced list of recommended tracks for submittal to the governor's office by June 26th.

Next slide.

So this is the base map of eligible tracks within the city of Dallas.

This is what was released by U.S.

Treasury.

As a reminder, every eligible tract must either have a median family income of 70% or less of the uh metro median family income or a poverty rate that is 20% or higher, and a median family income that is 125% or below the median family income.

So from the initial map, there are 175 eligible census tracts in the city of Dallas.

Next slide.

Okay.

Staff then used the initial list of tracks, and we backed out tracks that are mostly located within flood zones, do not align with any city of Dallas incentive policy areas, are comprised of less than 25% commercial property or that are essentially uh single-family residential neighborhoods.

After that, there are 133 census tracts remaining.

Next slide.

And this is the map that we brought to you at the last month's economic development committee meeting in early April.

We opened a public comment period where we received comments on 27 distinct census tracts that are shown here in red.

The May map also included the recommended sites that staff had identified, which are outlined in blue.

Combined there were 74 census tracts at the May meeting.

Next slide.

So we've spent the next uh the last month refining that list of 74 tracks to doing some additional review to recommend the 42 census tracts that are seen in this map across these 42 tracks.

We believe the possible investment is about $9 billion.

And there are more details on each of the tracks and identified opportunities in appendix A on a slide-by-slide basis.

Next slide.

In terms of the next steps, we're here today to request committee approval of the Office of Academic Development's recommendation of 42 tracks for nomination to the governor's office for consideration as opportunity zones pursuant to the opportunity zone program as administered by the U.S.

Department of Treasury.

Upon that approval, staff will begin the submission process compiling data requested by the state for each census tract with a submission going to the state no later than June 26th.

And with that, we will stop for questions.

Well, thank you very much for the presentation.

We'll start on my left with Councilwoman Kadana.

Councilmember Gracie.

Thank you.

And I know you've briefed this to us a couple of times, but just refresh my memory again.

Having these opportunity zones in these locations is a good thing because the idea behind the program is that it attracts additional outside capital for investors.

So they're under the OZ program, you make an investment in a qualified opportunity fund, and the investor in those funds get tax benefits from their capital gains taxes.

So basically what it does is it layers in another potential funding source for projects, not city projects per se, because this happens outside of what the city does, but it provides additional capital in these more distress census tracts.

And and just because it's an opportunity zone, or does that typically because again I'm confused a little bit and filling some kind of way?

I think this is a good thing, but when you have an opportunity zone and then in in a particular part of the city, does that then does that encourage development as a whole, or does it incur or does it encourage low income development or are they two separate things?

This is just a tool that creates additional investment opportunity.

I guess I'm trying to make sure we don't celebrate something that could turn around and backfire down the road unintentionally.

The simplest answer is it's a tool to provide additional capital to the neighborhood.

Through real estate, through yeah, for real estate development.

What we have seen in the so it's a little bit hard to answer your question because there wasn't reporting requirements in the first rule or in the first version of the program, so we don't actually have very good outcome data.

So I can't.

I think that's what it was.

Yeah, we couldn't we couldn't determine if these were successful or not because we didn't necessarily have the data to support it from there.

But going forward, we will now have ways to track whether or not making this an opportunity zone, it was successful by some way.

And what is that?

Correct.

So under the 2.0 law, they are now required to submit data reports to Treasury, and then Treasury has to submit that information to states.

So we will have actual outcome data that we didn't have in the first version of the program.

Okay, I think that's it for now, Mr.

Chair.

Councilmember Roth.

Sorry to miss the briefing, but uh my question was is what can we do as council folks for our districts to help uh help you with with information with contacts with uh sort of pushing the projects toward you.

What what can we do to give you some support to be able to make a good um presentation and get a good opportunity to really to win win a uh an identification?

Yes.

So once we kind of finalize the tracks, if we lock in at these 42, we will be reaching out to each of you and getting whatever information you want to supply to help us support the nomination.

Um there's you know, this the we fill out a spreadsheet basically that has a series of yes-no questions or multiple choice questions.

It also has this other category, and so that's where the information from projects from council members, all of that we will start compiling and put that in as our full packet to the governor's office.

I also want to thank you both for for really reaching out to folks in in these various districts and and really trying to also engage with the developers and with the folks that could hopefully take advantage of this and and really stimulate some projects.

So this is a real important thing, and I really do appreciate your efforts and with regards specifically to district level.

Councilmember Blair.

Thank you chair and thank you for this presentation I do have a couple of questions I believe looking at page 3 and 49 it shows where you use the opportunity zones you have that you guys have identified for district eight um that one would be Redbird Mall and on page 30 and page 49 it would be all of UNT and Paul Quinn.

So following up on what Councilman Gracie was was saying you these areas you're you're trying to bring opportunity for development and developers to come in and provide help to stimulate new growth is that what I'm hearing and and if so how does that work now the opportunity zone program is intended to help potential developers of real property so the developers of real property that's that it would be the responsibility of the city to if a project is proposed in any of these areas and requires a rezoning it would be the responsibility of the city to work with that developer to make the project the best that it can be for the community the opportunity zone program first and foremost is just a way to uh draw investment funding to these zones right we the city does not create these zones these are zones created by the U.S.

Census Bureau so they are where they are but it's the city's opportunity with this process to identify areas that align with city goals for redevelopment or new development for areas that have never developed at all and so that's this process is it's the city's opportunity to focus what potentially is investment from outside of the city to areas that we want to see developed or redeveloped.

And I'm asking these questions I've had two phone calls this morning in regards to they've there were investors or people who had large swathes of land and they were their their concern was the the uh tag of opportunity zone what does it mean and how was it dis and I get how it was chosen but they're still thinking opportunity zone means um bringing in the type of development that does not elevate the community but keeps it status quo or somehow lessens the the viability of it's certainly the possibility um we saw with the first program version in 2017 we have we the city have no idea what developments occurred with opportunity zone funding we only know about projects that may have had to come to the city for reasons of entitlements or on a rare occasion an incentive through our office so yes investment that um making it more investment possible um may potentially bring development that we can't control that's certainly uh something to consider so when you're saying that it could bring investments that you can't control um and that may also not bring in the type of development that uplifts the community but keeps the status quo um how do we then look at at the growth opportunity and the growth that we are determining and the the community is determining that it wants to yeah I understand the question I think from the staff perspective we are making recommendations uh of areas that need development and investment and already have city approved plans that any developers that come in will be required to follow and if you're what if what if the what if the community does not want this area to be an opportunity zone.

Let us know right now okay I will so we can but I mean I I want I want you to understand that our recommendation is based on the fact that we think these zones will score well because they already align for the most part with city goals and objectives and city plans and city tools that are already in place and put in place by the city council we can we can have further conversations offline thank you.

Chair Ridley and Chair I'm going to give you a few extra minutes I think one of our colleagues has some additional questions.

Great thank you Mr Chair so uh logistically how does the money flow from the investors the taxpayers to the actual projects how is the money allocated to particular opportunity zone areas.

So there's the establishment of qualified opportunity funds and then if you have eligible capital gains you would make that investment into a capital a qualified opportunity fund and the qualified opportunity fund then provides the funding to the project.

Okay so the individual investors don't choose the specific investments or even the census tracts where the money will be invested they can based on the prospectus of what the QOF says but it's they're not investing directly into any project in the fund correct and then the fund uh receives what applications from developers and then they select which projects to fund correct the fund serves as the match between the developer and the investor.

Okay.

Who organizes these funds they're all organized by third party financial services organizations.

Okay.

On to questions from uh council member West does staff have opportunity zone 1.0 project data that you can bring we do not um as I mentioned there was no reporting requirements under the 1.0 rules and so we we don't know so there's just no data on where the money was spent there in Texas we do not have data in Ohio they did some state by state data because they had some other rules but we don't have anything for Dallas.

Does the city have any role in this process that you've just outlined we're we're uninvolved unless they need entitlements correct so the only role that the city has is to nominate the tracks to the governor's office other than that it's all independent.

Okay.

How is staff scoring each tract against the governor's four criteria and will you prepare a track by track scoring narrative for the June 26th package?

Yes so we there's a list of all the things that the governor's office is asking for our goal is to fill out each cell as comprehensively as possible unlike LITEC or something there's not a SOLF score that we do but our goal is to fill out every every piece of information we have to maximize how the governor's office then scores it so we will you know I mean there's there's a variety of information that's asked for and we do it as on a track by track so do you do you develop uh scoring for each of the tracks no so we are just providing the information and the governor's office will do the scoring and it's qualitative information right the the scoring is what it is it's established by the governor's office so we plug we plug in the qualitative information that we know or we have received from outside stakeholders and that's it.

So that's how you've winnowed the total list down to 42 is employment of those scoring criteria.

Yes.

Is it just coincidence that that 42 final list is about 25% of the total qualified tracks?

Yes, but it's a happy coincidence.

Yes.

Will the I 30 canyon argument be made explicitly and paired with TechSot's grant materials?

Yeah, we can we will definitely incorporate that.

So I mean the you know, under the local support, there's a listing about how does this tract fit the community's overall economic development priorities long-term goals, and so that type of revitalization is something we would capture.

There's also a section for other information, and so we will identify major projects in each census tract under that.

Yes, as best as we can.

So how do you do that?

Do you identify which census tracts these projects are located in, determine that they're qualified or not, and then um add them to the list?

Uh well, we when we put out our call for um feedback, was that in June?

I mean uh April.

Yeah.

So many of the the owners of property or controllers of property in most of these areas did reach out to us, or we already know them, right?

We already have relationships with them.

And so um most of that uh input has already been provided.

So were any of those projects in qualified census tracts?

Yes.

Okay, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Any uh Chair Johnson?

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh when we're looking at the opportunity zones, I want to know, and I guess you're saying the governor came up with uh with this based off the census track.

Is that what I heard, or am I wrong?

So census tracts are created by the U.S.

Census Bureau, but the process of taking cities recommendations, uh, is the governor's office process, right?

So the governor will take recommendations from all cities and counties in Texas and then make a decision.

Okay, so help me let's identify our opportunity zones.

What are opportunity zones?

So I opportunity.

So I mean, the if you go back to are your question what qualifies for an opportunity zone, or what's the benefit of your definition, what is an opportunity zone?

Okay.

So an opportunity zone is a designated census tract where a qualified opportunity investment can be made.

What kind of investment in the opportunity zone?

So it has to be through a qualified opportunity fund, and it allows the investor to defer their capital gains taxes through that fund to support redevelopment.

So I'm looking here, uh you're not answering the question, so I'm gonna I'm gonna move on.

Um, the way I need to be answered.

Um, Chair Johnson.

So uh and maybe this is where you're going, if not, um, help help correct me.

Um, but Heather, I think the question might be is what type of projects do you qualify for uh the incentives?

So I know that the single family homes are kind of limited, but they're but more commercial proper uh development is.

Yeah, so sorry for misunderstanding that traditionally the projects have been a lot of multifamily housing, but it can also be operating business.

Okay, so that's what I was getting at.

When we're looking at multi-family, are we talking about mostly low income?

What when we're looking at more apartments?

It mo to date it's mostly been multifamily residential, but there isn't a requirement that there's any low income housing with the program.

Okay, the reason why I'm asking this because I'm looking at I think uh Cedacrest, it said C-decrest here, uh on the track on the census track, and I guess I just want to know how we come up with C to Crest as an opportunity zone, and what does that what does that type of development look like?

That was one where we had public feedback for planned reinvestment in the area for multifamily and mixed use.

Um, there wasn't any, you know.

I mean, it was a very large-scale redevelopment that was proposed.

I would like to see that data.

Uh I was a trustee uh when I guess when this was done, and I didn't get any participation in that particular census tracking from my understanding it was so from a selective group and not everybody from what we was told.

So I don't know if that information is correct, but that's what we would what was shared with us.

And I'm concerned with um uh the multi uh use development or mixed use development without really having a real conversation with our community and with me as now the council member to see what we're trying to do in that particular area.

So I I don't know I don't know if I can will approve this in my district.

So the information that we had from the public feedback process for census track two eleven uh was uh proposed investment of 150 million from smart living residential um for a retail office and multifamily redevelopment.

I don't care how much money you're saying, I'm saying that that's it isn't come through my community.

We did not have a conversation as a council member.

I have not had a conversation, so I don't I'm not gonna just say because it's a hundred and fifty million that I'm just excited, I don't know what to be excited about.

Those are numbers to me.

The community was that were they involved since I've been here.

Have you guys brought uh brought this to my attention?

Have we sat down and had a meeting concerning this and say, hey, this is the direction that we're going, and the answer to all of those questions is no.

So I'm not gonna sit here and say that I'm excited about this or can endorse this, and when my community and I have not even had a discussion, and we are having this discussion about CDCRS right now.

So I can't support this right now until I'm seeing someone sit down with me in my community and help us understand what's going on.

I can get community input concerning opportunity zone because the opportunity zone that I've been seeing is not real economic development.

It's more gas stations in district four that creates more laundry, more drug deals, more prostitution, more blight.

That is what we've been getting, and that is not an opportunity zone.

That's a disaster.

That's opposition, not opportunity.

So I will not support this until I get what is needed for my community.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Kadena.

Hi, Heather.

Um, so I have a question.

So there's quite a few census tracks in District 6.

Um, and the you know, there's some areas that I think the community would support more than other areas.

Um, so is there anything that we can do as council members to maybe highlight those specific areas and then working maybe with some of the business and community members as well.

So thank you for the question.

I think if there's areas that you're more prior, you have an interest in prioritizing higher.

We can do that through support letter and support letters from the community, and we'll capture that in the packets.

Okay, great.

Because I know I've had a a couple of businesses that I think would be really excited about having this, and also some of the community members that wouldn't know how to use this tool.

Because I think we had it in another census track and six, and I'm just you know, again, I think with the past program, I'm not sure how effective it was in that particular census track.

So thanks.

Chair Ridley.

So uh approval of this list of 42 opportunity zones does not guarantee that any one of them will receive funding.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

So we will nominate or the city will send 42 to the governor's office, and then the governor's office will make a final determination of what they submit to Treasury in the past.

Treasury blessed every governor's recommendation where the real determination came was at the governor's office at each state.

And does the governor typically reduce our list?

So last time we submitted 62, 50 more than 50, and we ended up with 15.

So there was a very sub-15.

So there was a very substantial reduction from what the city recommended to what the governor's office granted.

And even of those 15, those aren't all guaranteed funding.

It depends upon where the development funds wish to invest the money.

Correct.

It just all the designation means is it's eligible to receive this type of funding, and the other option is it isn't.

And um, will some of those projects, if not most of them, require some kind of city entitlement approval before they're built?

I I I don't want to answer that because I'll we don't know.

Okay, depends on what they want to build, I suppose.

Okay.

Well, at this point, if you're ready to receive a motion, Mr.

Chair.

I have a few comments.

Okay.

But happy to take a motion.

Uh thank y'all for the presentation.

Out of the 42 that have been identified thus far, will we rank them in any particular order?

And the follow-up to that is the 50 or so that we submitted uh in uh one the opportunity uh zone 1.0, I guess the first one of the 15, did we believe that those 15 that made it out were the ones that we would have prioritized at the top, or did we miss some by not giving a list of priority?

So in the 2017 round, the city had about 4550 that were prioritized as priority one, and about 14 that were priority two when we got the review, the designations back from the governor's office.

Some were priority one, some are priority two, and some were eligible and not prioritized at all.

So, I mean, the other difference was they weren't doing the scoring process in the governor's office in 2017.

Um, so I think the idea is that you know our goal is to submit as many nine, what we feel like should score nine points as possible, so that everything that we're submitting is a very competitive census tract.

So I I get that, uh, but I also want to make sure that some that we feel uh are deserving, and we want to ensure that they're on the list that they make it across.

Um, and so I also know though that there might be some uh census tracks that we don't recommend that outside lobbying can still happen.

So developers can go straight to the governor's office and try to get a census track included, or sometimes I guess uh if no one's interested in it to remove them.

So let me ask that has there ever been a time where uh census tracks um get re um get added.

After like that we didn't uh make a recommendation on so that happened in the last round, yes.

There were one or two census tracts that we didn't have on the list that went to the governor's office.

Once they're locked in, they're they stay in place for 10 years.

Okay, and uh last question is um lost my train of thought there.

Uh I guess I'll go ahead and uh hand it over to Vice Chair Ridley for a motion.

I move that we forward the recommended list of forty-two opportunity zones to the full council recommending approval.

There's a motion, is there a second second?

Is there any discussion, Chair Johnson?

Very quickly, if I may.

Um heard the motion mentioning uh the list going to full council.

We had not as a staff had not recommended that this go to full council because of the timing and the extra work that we'll be doing.

Thank you for catching that.

So you don't need full council approval.

We aren't recommending it.

Okay.

Well, then I revise my motion to recommend that the staff send this list of 42 projects to the governor's office.

And uh who was that second advice?

Uh Bill, do you accept that?

Okay, great.

Okay.

Um I am going to go to uh Chair Gracie first, and then I'll go around to non-committee members.

Chair Gracie.

Okay, so to uh and I'm sure he's he's over he leaning forward, waiting to so uh to Chair Max's uh Terra Johnson's uh point in an event like this.

I'm just trying to be clear now.

So we don't have to go to council to get approval for these census tracts.

At what point if there is one that's missing, um that perhaps you know, with with actually both uh uh Chair Johnson and uh Vice Chair Blair being fairly new.

Are there opportunities for them to go back?

He's had some community meetings.

I know they have uh we I think we each in some way or another have some community meetings uh moving around economic development.

Is there an opportunity to add additional ones if we don't have to go to council and by what deadline?

Or remove.

That would have to be that would have to be, I think in the this is probably a question for the attorneys.

That would be in the motion that is acted on by this body to give that flexibility or that authority to the staff to add and subtract before we make a final submission, I think.

Okay, so and if if this motion passes today, that's it, right?

Yes, that would be our plan.

If this body acts on that recommendation, we will spend the next three weeks filling out all the details that need to be submitted to the governor's office.

Just for these listed on this brief that's correct, okay.

All right.

I don't know if I can support this at this point.

What happens if we don't move it forward now?

We won't have a recommendation to make to the governor's office.

Okay.

That's why I'm suggesting the body might want to think about adding in some flexibility to add and subtract.

Got it.

And I see what you're saying.

I understood it.

Okay.

So uh I am gonna support the motion.

It's something that we need to move forward with, but I do want to leave it open to possibly remove some census tracts if the community uh does not want to move those forward.

But I do think that there's a handful of census tracts that are uh definitely uh in need of uh these supports to be able to make those projects happen, and I don't want to stifle the economic development.

And so Kevin, can you elaborate a little bit more on your recommendation of kind of leaving it open-ended?

Well, I'm I I don't anticipate from what I've heard today, I don't anticipate there being a lot of um changes from the 42 we've recommended, maybe one or two or three here and there.

Um so we will we will work on all, you know, all 42.

And if at some point in the next three weeks um we're directed, maybe perhaps by you or you know, through other council members to remove a census track from our recommendation, that's easy.

Um adding it, adding a new one that we haven't considered that's a little bit more difficult given that we may not have uh a lot of qualitative information to make a to back that recommendation, but we can include it.

You know, it's it's it may not score as well, okay.

Um, so uh thank you for for that.

But there's also the opportunity for census tracts and are not included for us to work directly with those developers um to lobby at the governor's office.

Yes, absolutely.

Outside of this process, developers are welcome to.

If we uh decide to remove one or two census tracks, can that be done by a memo and rather than having to come back?

Yeah, I think if we were to be directed to move forward with 42 and uh with the flexibility to tweak that final list, um we we would obviously do a Friday memo or some official memo to the full council before we submit that final list.

Okay.

Uh before I uh hand it back over to uh the committee members, um I asked that you uh work with especially uh Chair Johnson's um office to address um his concerns with that, and of course yours, you'll be you're gonna be able to chime in here in a second.

Uh councilmember Kadena.

Kevin, I I seem to think that or remember that y'all had a recommended number that y'all wanted to forward to the governor's office, was it was it this number, the 43, or was it lower?

I mean 40 42 43 is 25% of our city's eligible track.

So we feel like that's a good number.

It's not set in stone.

We have flexibility on it.

Okay.

Um we're we're more concerned about going higher on the top end just because of the amount of detail that has to be submitted for each tract.

Um, but we certainly can we're not we're not wetted to 42.

I'm I'm just wondering if we had less, is it more likely that maybe those would get chosen or not necessarily?

We just don't know.

I mean, again, last time there were many, many, there were 60 ish submitted and 15 were selected.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Councilmember Blair.

I have to ask the same question that um Chair uh Johnson asked.

Is it is there was no communication, no collaboration, no nothing to say, this is what's going on, this is what we're doing.

Um, and from what I can hear from my community, um, especially those that know about opportunity zone and what they mean, that they too were never contacted, communicated with or collaborated with.

So we had a um Heather, um I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in here a little bit, because I do believe at the last committee member uh committee meeting uh we opened it up to the floor to allow committee members to um suggest census tracts that were not included.

Um, and I'm don't recall if we sent a a memo after that, but I do believe we gave an opportunity for uh the council to provide feedback.

Um obviously we can always do better on on communication, and so I'll take some of that thought for not uh getting those uh follow-ups, but I do believe we gave an opportunity for us to uh to present additional tracks.

And we also had a public um input process in April that was open for three weeks, two weeks on our website where we received you know 75 tracks with comments on it.

Uh we put that out via a council memo.

We had information in our newsletter, we had information on our website, and we left that open for two two and a half weeks for additional public input.

And that information was presented at the May meeting.

Uh Chair Johnson.

Yes, is that April 2026?

Okay, here's my concern.

I hear what you guys are saying, but I'm also saying that there was no phone call.

There was no when you guys want to do something, when administration wants to get our attention, and is it something that that we may have overlooked?

You guys make the extra extra the extra effort to make sure that we understand what's going on, and we seek out those answers.

Now, opportunity, economic opportunity is the availability or conditions, resource and system that allows individuals to improve their financial status and quality of life.

That's what we consider economic opportunity, which creates an opportunity zone.

Now the three council members that you're saying, one or two, three that have some concern are the black council members.

So to me, it's a little insulting just to say, oh, we just got one or two or three, because that's the African American community, and we can say it out loud, and I'm gonna talk about it out loud.

That's a problem for me, and I'm not gonna be quiet about it.

If you think I am, then you're wrong.

It's not hard to say let's get communication, let's sit down, let's meet, let's talk.

That's not an unfair ask.

That has been the history.

Although you're saying that we could have did it better, I'm saying that we need to have better communication, and we need to be able to have communication with our community and bring the economic development team out to discuss these matters and stop being overlooked in the black community.

That's what I'm saying directly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I'll just follow up that with our to our city manager's office.

I know that um seems to happen more often than not on the lack of direct communication from city management to colleagues, and so we'll continue to improve on that.

Um, Alina with the city manager's office.

Absolutely, yes, Chair.

Noted.

Uh Chair Riddley.

Well, I think the whole purpose of this item on our agenda is to approve the staff's recommended list of opportunity zones.

And it sounds like you need a fair amount of time, perhaps three weeks to prepare the submission to the governor's office.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

So uh I'm not in favor of leaving this a blank check that anyone can add or subtract to this list that subverts the purpose of this agenda item in this committee.

Um at most, um I can consider allowing council members to request that one of the census tracts, one or more in their districts be withdrawn from the list, but I think it's unfair to staff to allow census tracts to be added, which requires you to now do additional work in a short period of time.

So I don't know if there's any interest in allowing a veto.

Um, but I if there is, I would consider that in my motion.

So I think that's already in in the motion uh according to staff to be able to withdraw census tracks.

Well, no, it's my motion, it's not staff's.

Well well, no, but um, so I mean if if you want to make the motion to include council members to withdraw census tracts, I believe that's the your intent, is that?

Yes, I'll I'll make that amendment if my second will approve that.

Can you restate that?

Yes, I'll amend my motion to approve the list of forty-two opportunity zones, but allow council members to withdraw opportunity zones in their district by a certain date.

When what kind of a deadline would staff like for that process to be completed?

Our submission is due on the 26th, so I think if we're gonna have um, well would a week from now would a week from now be uh sufficient for you?

We can I mean yeah, we can push it out to maybe like the 17th.

Is that reasonable?

That gives council members two two weeks to get feedback and us communicate.

Because deleting stuff is easy, right?

Like, let's just say the 15th.

That's two weeks from the day.

Okay, that's perfect.

All right, so um if any council member wants to withdraw a census tract on this list, they must submit a memo to staff requesting that by uh June fourth uh 15th.

Chair, will we be able to add a community?

I know he said it'd be difficult, but I'm asking, will we be able to add an another part of the community that actually needs that opportunity instead of one that's probably fluent?

So um are you requesting a community meeting versus adding another census track?

I am requesting a community meeting to discuss what part of district four were this benefit from from our community.

Um I mean, I I'm I'm open to that.

I don't know if staff can accommodate a meeting to advise to the community what a census tract is and um to see if they're in favor of supporting it.

We can try.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So there is a motion and a second, go ahead.

Could I clarify the the motion?

Because I I'm sorry, I wasn't I was engaged.

Um is it just to basically?

I'll let the uh I'll advise Chair Ridley uh, thank you.

Did you have a specific clarification?

Yeah, I just wanted to restate the motion.

Oh, restate it.

Okay.

Please.

Uh yes, that we approve the list of 42 uh census tracts as opportunity zones to be submitted to the governor's office um with the uh allowance of council members to withdraw any census tracts within their district by June 15th with a memo to staff.

Um and we would not be limiting the um, we would not uh allow for somebody to submit an additional set to staff for for uh consideration.

No, that doesn't allow time for staff to vet them.

So this is just a uh process to allow withdrawals, not additions.

That also blah blah.

I'll second them, I'll second amended.

So um the this will allow council members to remove a census track, it will also allow an opportunity for staff to go back to the communities to go over census tracts and whether they want to stay in the census track list or be removed.

So staff will be able to uh accommodate that.

Um Chair Gracie, not to complicate this situation at the last minute, but I'd in addition to remove, could we remove portions of fair enough?

All right, um, anyone else?

Um councilmember Roth.

I'm sorry.

Uh uh to sort of be sensitive to the the concerns of some of our c my colleagues, uh the issue is is certainly it's timing to be able to get an application in.

Um I think you vetted it different areas.

The question that I that I'm hearing that I'm not that I'm not sure about is if somebody if if uh a council district says you know there is a particular area that was not included in the 42, and we think that it's something that maybe should be considered, and we have a project that's basically might qualify for it, we would like to be able to add have the flexibility to add that census for consideration and for construction of a package to the governor's office.

I think if if we do consider that as a possible alternative uh amendment to this motion, would it be possible to set a deadline let's say that same June 17th deadline?

Uh and then and if you can get get it together by then, great.

And if you can't, the sooner they can, the sooner a district can bring another project to you, uh the better.

And if you if they can't get it together or if it's not feasible, I'm not saying to wait till the last minute, but but uh give you another 10 days.

If somebody else wants to find a new project, they got 10 days to do it or 15 days or 17 days to do it.

And if they can, uh you can try to package together the best you can.

It still has to be approved by the governor's office.

It's still a package, and there's no guarantee that we're gonna get any of these forty-two.

They're probably gonna only be fifteen or twelve, but if you want to submit another deal, we could we could uh allow them to do as long as we have a hard deadline of you know 15th or 17th, whatever it is.

Council member roffett, that's directed to us.

The answer is yes.

We could add a tract.

I think the thinking is we were having some table talk here.

We would we would probably do a Friday memo this Friday to the full council saying here's what the the committee um endorsed as recommended by staff, assuming that happens, and we'll take additional ads or deletions and up until June 15th.

And whether or not a particular district wants to hold meetings, go out for meetings, do whatever process is, that's up to that that district.

But the point is to allow them to allow another proposal to come forward to you all for packaging for the governor's uh submission.

Uh, what is the proper to try to would it be another amendment?

Well, there's a motion on the floor, and I'm gonna go to Chair uh Riddley.

Well, I I don't agree with adding projects to this late date because we might as well not take a vote today because we're allowing individual council members to make up their own lists.

Um the purpose of this, as I understand it, is to approve staff's recommended list of 42.

Now, for some reason the council member doesn't want their census tract to be in that list, fine, they can withdraw it, but to be adding new census tracts that haven't yet been vetted that haven't been in our materials for us to review and vote on, I think is inappropriate, and this is not a process of approving projects for funding.

This is simply designating a geographic area called a census track as qualifying under the treasury's requirements in terms of income and poverty levels, so that developers who want to develop in those areas can receive this investment as an incentive to invest in those areas.

But it's true, isn't it, Mr.

Spath, that you don't know what projects, if any, are proposed for any of these census tracts?

That's absolutely true.

So uh just because somebody wants a development in a particular area of their district doesn't mean it's gonna meet the treasury's qualifications, and they've already identified those census tracts that do meet that qualification.

So I I just think that's too much flexibility, and it just gives the total discretion to staff as to what to include and what not to include.

Councilmember Blair.

So um when I'm looking at when I'm going through this and I'm I'm rereading this um teenth time and listening to you guys ask questions that I didn't even think to ask.

Can I ask the question of you guys?

Because you guys said you cannot say whether a uh a development that would give some tax abatements would how would that impact how would an opportunity zone impact that that development would still need to go through the regular process, and at the during that process, it can be vetted and it can and that process can decide whether or not investment, whether or not that should fall into that particular program, correct?

Correct.

This is not a city of Dallas incentive program, so anything that would be incentivized would come to you, would come for consideration, would go through zoning, would go through whatever steps it would need to go through.

The only thing that this will do is designate the census tracks that are eligible to receive opportunity zone investment.

Um that is outside of city funding.

So if and and I'm not sure a light bulb just came on, and if it did, then you know, then I'm okay.

So with the opportunity zones, this project program, um, aligns and something that that that chair uh Gracie said, um, yeah, listen, because I'm talking about you, uh, that through this process and this program that there could be federal dollars brought to that particular community for investments, whether it be retail, commercial, or residential.

So my understanding is that there's not necessarily incentives, it's uh, yeah.

May I may I jump in?

The incentive is to the investor, and so opportunity zone funds are just a source of equity that a developer of real estate or a business may seek as a source of equity funding for their project.

So we don't see anything.

Well, that is outside of anything that we see on the ground, it's all done behind the scenes, how they get their money and how they in order for them to do whatever development they're gonna do.

So whenever they're looking to get their funding, if it's an opportunity zone, they can go through that particular process, get money from a different source.

It's like a banker, if you will.

Yes, it's a source of equity.

Just like uh any other private equity source out there.

I think the light bulb just came on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I'm not gonna support the um opportunity to add additional census tracks.

There's that opportunity is still open through the governor's office.

Um I don't want to get into a position where we um have staff in a crunch and have them go try to do homework that we've been doing for now at least two, three months, three months.

Uh the deadlines were were submitted.

Uh there was opportunities to include or exclude census tracks.

Uh and I think we're giving uh leverage right now for opportunities to remove census tracks if they choose not to uh if they feel that they're not a good benefit to their community.

And so I'm going to support uh Chair Ridley's motion to um allow for council members to with uh eliminate um census tracts but not to add census tracks.

Um I don't think that this would be a good practice moving forward to um change deadlines that have been uh forecasted and and presented.

So with that, um we'll go to one more round and then we'll take a vote.

Uh Chair Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I like what you said.

Uh Kevin, you said equity, and I appreciate what Chair Ridley said.

Uh this is not about a project that's trying to get developed in a part of District 4.

What my advocacy is is the the community that is on this particular census track is an affluent area, it's not an area that needs the opportunity.

It is an area that is very fluent, very rich history and culture.

What we're trying to do is get in areas of district four that actually need the opportunities that I have the crime, that I have the blight that this particular project uh or opportunity can help that part of District 4.

I don't want the have to keep receiving and have nots not to keep not getting anything, is what I'm saying.

So I want to make that clear.

Uh and I understand that you guys have to take a vote uh recommendation, but I'm just trying to make sure that you did what that we're doing, what uh Mr.

Spat said, equity.

Making sure that we have real equity.

Thank you.

All right.

Seeing no further discussion, there is a motion and a second, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Next item is briefing item BE.

Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem and Economic Development Committee.

My name's Jason Poole.

I'm the assistant director for planning and development and the customer experience.

Next slide, please.

I'd like to thank you for.

I don't know that that's my presentation.

Let me share my screen.

So sorry, please forgive me.

So today I want to provide an update on Dallas now, one year after the implementation.

It shows I'm sharing content, but nothing's coming up.

So I think most committee members have the presentation in front of them.

So let's just go ahead and get started.

Thank you.

So I want to discuss uh the foundation of the project, what we've learned through this implementation, how the system has expanded our coordination across departments and our services, what performance trends we're seeing, and where we're headed next.

Towards the end, if everything works correctly, uh I'd like to provide a demo on a new transparency tool that's in the works to be released within the next couple weeks or coming month, uh providing visibility into searches by council districts.

So before discussing Dallas now, I want to explain the environment just a little bit that it was built to support planning and development is involved throughout the entire life cycle of the development process from long-range planning and area planning all the way to uh pre-development activities from zoning and engineering and infrastructure and then ultimately permitting and inspections.

Projects move through numerous services, through teams, partner departments, all before construction begins or is completed.

Historically, many of these activities relied on separate systems, processes, and information sources.

Dallas now was implemented to create a more connected approach to managing development activity across those services.

It's our mission statement for our department.

Together, we're planning and building a better Dallas for All.

This technology is not in any way meant to replace that mission, but it is to support it.

It provides the necessary tools to better serve applicants, coordinate our services, and manage development activity across the city.

It does represent a multi-year effort involving planning development, ITS, various vendors, and a number of department uh partners across the city.

I'd like to especially recognize our innovation team and our senior project coordinators who headed that team.

They've been involved from the earliest stages of the system design and the development through UAT testing implementation.

They were involved in training, issue resolution, and through ongoing enhancements that continue today.

While many people contributed this effort, uh this team has played a central role in helping guide the project from concept to completion and now into continuous improvement.

Many of the accomplishments and improvements highlighted throughout this presentation are a direct result of their commitment, expertise, and leadership.

This next set will focus on the first year implementation and the operational transformation that followed.

So one way to look at Dallas Now and its significance is through scale.

Since the launch, the system has supported more than 126,000 records, over 35,000 customer accounts, more than 14,000 contractor registrations and renewals, and more than 213,000 inspections.

These numbers represent the volume of activity that's now managed within a single platform and illustrate how critical this system has become to our daily operations.

Equally as important are the operational impacts and adjustments that followed implementation.

Dallas now launched on May 5th, 2025, six months ahead of schedule.

It replaced a land management system that served the city for more than 20 years.

The immediate impact was huge.

Planning, zoning, permitting, inspections, engineering, and partner development processes were all brought together into a single digital environment.

Processes that had historically relied on multiple systems, paper records, emails, manual handoffs, could all now be handled through one single platform.

At the same time, implementation reinforced that technology alone doesn't create transformation.

This transformation requires staff, customers, and partner departments to adopt new workflows, learn new processes, and operate in a more coordinated environment than before.

As the system has been used in daily operations, it's helped us identify opportunities to improve both the technology and our business processes.

Those lessons continue to guide system updates, process refinements, our training efforts, and the overall user experience today.

One of the lessons learned during implementation was that Dallas Now could not be treated as a completed project once the system went live.

Supporting a platform of this size requires some dedicated resources focused on continuous improvement training and operational alignment.

As mentioned, the innovation team was there from the beginning.

Today they continue working closely with IT and vendor partners to identify enhancements to manage our updates, support reporting to troubleshoot issues, and basically help guide direction for the future of the platform.

This includes regular coordination with ITS and the vendors, as well as monthly releases that deliver these enhancements and improvements.

Equally important has been the training team.

The transition to Dallas Now introduced new processes and new ways of working for both staff and customers.

The training team has played a critical role in providing support, developing documentation, delivering training, and helping users successfully adopt to an all-digital environment.

During GoLive, the team established a dedicated customer center to provide hands-on assistance and support.

What began as a temporary resource during implementation has evolved into a permanent service within planning and development, serving as an ongoing resource for both staff and customers.

This allows the people performing the work every day to directly contribute to redefining the process and the system and the processes that will support it.

Together, these groups help ensure that Dallas Now continues to evolve based on operational experience and our user feedback.

This next section will focus on capabilities that have been enabled through Dallas Now and how these capabilities are changing the way planning and development services are delivered.

Another benefit of Dallas Now is its ability to connect departments and systems.

Today, Dallas Now supports coordinated workflows, which include Dallas Water Utilities, Parks and Recreation, Transportation and Public Works, Aviation, Dallas Fire and Rescue, and other development partners.

These integrations allow our partner departments to participate directly in the review process rather than relying on separate systems and emails or manual coordination.

Examples include the integration of transportation and public works, aviation, and Dallas fire rescues into the review process, Dallas water utilities inspection coordination and SAP replacement for water wastewater installations, and integration of a revised parkland dedication fee collection process through parks and recreation.

Beyond departmental transfer participation, Dallas now is also integrated with 15 city and external systems, including the city's document repository, GIS, payment systems, authentication services, contractor and registration tools, and other operational platforms.

These connections reduce research and reduce duplicate data entry.

They improve information sharing and create a foundation for additional services and integrations in the future.

One area where customers experience Dallas now and the modernization of the process most directly is through planning and zoning.

Historically, records were stored across multiple shared drives and physical locations.

Some services required in-person visits in multiple places.

Today applications are submitted through a centralized digital process.

Review activity is accessible online, and customers have greater visibility and notification in the statuses of their projects.

Staff has also improved visibility related permitting and inspection activity, helping connected or helping to connect information that previously existed in separate areas.

Looking ahead, we're continuing to expand public facing transparency through our dashboards, the council district reporting, as I mentioned, earlier, and ongoing user experience enhancements.

Development in Dallas continues to increase and increase in complexity as well.

Supporting that growth requires more than processing applications of permits.

It requires a development process that's connected, transparent, and capable of adapting over time.

Dallas Now helps create that foundation by bringing information, services, and workflows together in a way that was not possible under the previous system.

It improves visibility into development activity, strengthens our ability to measure performance, and provides better information to support operational and policy decisions.

Most importantly, Dallas Now establishes a platform that continue evolving as a city as the city's needs change, allowing us to expand our services, improve the customer experience, and support future innovation.

These next slides were designed to show performance trends.

With commercial permitting, it's experienced the greatest variability following implementation, which is not surprising due to the complexity and the diversity of commercial projects.

It is important to note that the chart includes both regular reviews and Q team reviews combined.

New construction is in blue, additions in dark green, and alterations in light green.

Each follow a different review path and can vary significantly based on project scope and required reviews.

What we've seen over the past year is a gradual stabilization of the review times as staff and customers' processes and processes adapted to the new environment.

The data shows periods of significant improvement in February, the combined construction or the combined new commercial construction reached a median of 78 issued days.

Looking only at regular reviews for that same month, that median was 63 days.

As of mid-May, when this presentation was given, media or median issue days were 117 for new construction, 74 days for additions, and five for alterations.

Currently, June 1st data shows approximately 95 days for new construction, 45 days for additions, and eight days for alterations.

While the performance continues to fluctuate based on project mix and complexity, the overall trend shows increasing consistency and the reduction in review times.

As for residential permitting, it provides one of the clearest indicators of operational adaptation following implementation.

Residential reviews tend to be more standardized, making trends easier to evaluate over time.

This is also important to note on this graph that it combines all residential permitting types, including new construction additions and remodels.

Immediately following the launch, the residential permits were being issued in a median of approximately 20 days.

Over the past year, that median has steadily declined to six days, representing roughly a 70% reduction in median issued days.

This data shows a sustained downward and consistent trajectory rather than isolated improvements in individual months, showing staff, customers, and processes have largely adapted to the new environment, and that the benefits of standardized digital workflows are becoming more evident over time.

Zoning cases differ from permits drastically because many factors that influence timeline occur outside of the formal review process.

These include case complexity, applicant responsiveness, community engagement, public hearings, and council scheduling.

All these can impact the overall time required to reach final action.

Even with those variables, the data shows encouraging trends.

Since implementation, the median time from application to council consideration has declined from approximately 184 days to 128 days.

Equally important, timelines have become more consistent over the past several months, providing greater predictability for applicants, neighbors, and decision makers.

This last section highlights a new transparency tool and several areas where we expect Dallas now to continue working.

One of the newest public facing reporting features will allow users to search planning and building records by council district and by reporting period.

Users will be able to search one district or multiple districts.

They'll be able to search active records, completed records, or records that were submitted within a certain time period.

The goal is to provide council offices, stakeholders, and the public with easier access to the development activity occurring throughout the city.

I will attempt to provide this demonstration.

If it doesn't work, then I'll just move on.

So looking ahead, our focus remains on building upon the foundation Dallas Now has established.

Some of our upcoming priorities include continued user experience improvements, launching a new public portal, expanding integrations and partner department services, and evaluating opportunities to leverage AI to improve efficiency and simplify the process.

Dallas now is not the finish line, it's the foundation that will support future improvements across our planning and development services.

This concludes the presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

I'm going to start with Councilmember Blair.

You're our zone, one of our zoning experts up here.

So I know.

So when it comes to and and that's where I was going to go when it comes down to the zoning platform, residential, I I've heard feedback and maybe it's just a tutorial for me, so I can help my residents understand the platform a little better.

If that could happen, I would appreciate it.

Some of my res well, a lot of my residents are technologically challenged.

And anything I can do to be of benefit, if you'll help me with that, I'll help I'll help you with making sure they can have access.

We're certainly willing to do that.

Uh part of the role of that business resource center is if anybody does come to the department, uh, we do have a staff there that's fully dedicated to helping them through the application process and making sure their their submissions go through, scanning any documents they have and uh collecting any fees they need to pay or anything they need to do.

We did continue to keep that service available.

I have had um developers develop um those that are trying to go through the portal saying that it's a little uh not intuitive enough that it it you have to understand the brain of whoever designed it in order to operate in it.

Can you help me with that as well so that because they'll come to me and if I can walk them through it at seven o'clock at night when you guys have gone home, it would be easier than saying I don't know.

Most of my questions are most and most of mine is if you help me, I'll help you by helping them understand, but I don't understand it either.

So if you'll help me, I'll get to the the bottom of it.

Absolutely, thank you, Chair Ridley.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um I noticed that your presentation was really geared to the effect of Dallas now on city staff and greater efficiency reducing processing time, but you didn't address the uh functionality from the user's perspective, and I know at least initially there was a lot of frustration with it, perhaps because it was new.

Um, have those kinds of complaints now dwindled so that your audience is fully engaged with this new system.

They have.

I'd be lying if I said they completely went away, but uh we are continuing to make resources available in order to make the system more intuitive and easier.

Uh we are making monthly updates to the process.

We have a package that goes in at least every month, if not more.

Um, and we do have staff dedicated to helping the customer or applicant with with their process.

Um we've set up a digital consultation service, which will allow uh consultations to be scheduled with any of our teams.

Uh this is available through our Dallas Now page.

It allows uh a booking service for all of our teams, and they can meet in for in person or virtually.

Um we are continuing to to work through that and to uh improve in that area that is certainly higher list.

Um, the vendor is looking to release a new public portal uh within the next year or so.

We are like what a new public portal where the public will submit the applications.

Uh that is something we're we're pretty excited about that we're looking into and how we can implement and do make it more intuitive and and easier for the customer and the applicants.

Uh that is near and dear to my heart as the assistant director for the customer experience.

I do want to make it easy for them.

So we we are working on that.

We we do we are aware and uh we will continue.

So the uh times for processing applications for permits and for zoning are definitely on the downtrend.

I'm very pleased to see that.

Do you see those trends continuing or have we reached the minimum level at which you think this Dallas Now system can achieve?

Oh, not at all.

We plan to continue with the downward trend.

Uh we've put some other things in place outside of the system to help ensure that, but uh ultimately we want to get those down as low as we can.

Great.

We need to be competitive with our other cities in the region, and I think this is one of the critical criteria upon which Dallas is evaluated when developers decide where to invest their money.

So I think it's critical that we show continuing uh reduction in processing time.

Thank you.

Chair Gracie.

Thank you, and thank you for this presentation.

Um I I think I understand the Dallas now from an internal uh similar to Chair Ridley's perspective, but this Dallas now, this is the same one we can go on and pay as a resident can pay our bills and all of that stuff too, or is that two separate goals now?

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you so much.

Okay, Councilmember Cadena.

Yes, so I have a question on the fee collection.

Um, what was it like prior, and then what has changed now?

So I know we've made several adjustments to the fees.

Uh we we've got a uh fee schedule update uh every three years that's built into chapter 52.

Uh I think what you had in mind was was partial payments and and how that functioned before uh we did allow that on some projects uh with this system the way we built it was with our timelines in mind.

We we do want to get those down.

Uh there are permits that go through in a few weeks.

Uh most go in a as far as new construction, we'll we'll get through it in a couple months.

So uh we have we have geared towards our timelines.

Um we do want to look at potentially allowing some partial payments on the larger projects, but right now the system is not geared to do that at all uh just based on these timelines.

Um it's five to seven days for a remodel.

Um we we did have uh I guess this will affect the timeline if if we if we do allow these partial payments.

Um a lot of permits get abandoned throughout the process.

Um I guess we we are looking at that.

We we will explore that, but it will be with the the larger projects.

Yeah, because my office has gotten a couple of calls.

I know for some of the larger projects, especially those we've maybe incentivized, like one of them had to pay 426,000 dollars up front versus I think in the past they were able to pay a percentage, so that could definitely be a challenge to you know a large-scale project.

Um and so I think yeah, we definitely want to keep things moving along and faster, but also um allow those or you know, or help those that are um trying to work on projects maybe that we've incentivized or working with uh maybe not put more um you know things that might inhibit them or keep them from getting those projects done as well.

Um may I chime in uh a little bit on that Emily Liu, director of planning development.

Um so before Dallas Now, the fee are collected a hundred percent up front up front.

When Dallas Now first launched, there's a few months we experiment differently.

However, we find out that we we issue like close to 50,000 permits a year office.

Very, very busy.

And also, uh, as we start to um eliminate or reduce the timeline right now, between the first payment and last payment is not very long unless you have a very large project like the children's hospital.

And the third one we find out that sometimes people submit a permit and they don't follow through, they decided not need a permit.

We have done all the work to review, so we feel it's important to collect the fee up front.

However, there are some certain very large uh projects like what you mentioned, there might be room for us to work with the applicant to do different, but for the 50,000 permit would be very hard to customize um the payment schedule.

Yeah, I think my office had reached out a couple of times to see if there was something to do or to some way to help this particular developer.

And I was told the system wasn't allowed to.

So I mean, if there is a way to help, that would be wonderful.

Uh we we can talk to them, but right now uh we are doing the same thing as pre-Dallas now.

You know, we move back, there's a few months as a mentioned, we tried differently.

It didn't seem to work very well for our office.

Um but if it's very, very large, uh, we might be able to do some exceptional, but if everybody wants exception, that would be really chaotic.

Yes, no, I totally understand that, yeah.

Thank you.

Councilmember Roth.

Uh thank you.

Um I'm I'm thrilled that uh that you all uh revamping the department that you are making some progress.

Um, I hate to say to tell you this because it puts more pressure, but you are probably the most important economic development driver in this city.

And if we cannot get projects permitted, built, approved, and getting it done, we're gonna we really are in in a jam.

And so I appreciate the fact that you're making that effort to promote this to get it moving faster.

High tech is very important, but we still need to have high touch.

There still needs to be a venue, an opportunity, a place where people can come and talk to somebody, get advice from somebody, somebody who's got authority to make a decision on the spot to get a project handled, moving, and uh we cannot avoid we cannot encourage or allow delays, obstructions, and inefficiency.

And it's really critical.

You all are on the right path, but I want to support you in supporting our constituents who want to be developers here.

Um is do you have a dedicated help desk or ombudsman uh or some kind of a of a assistant uh available where a person can walk in and talk to somebody where they can come in, call somebody.

Uh, and I'm not talking about a small permit that we're talking about, I'm talking about projects where people want to build stuff.

How do you handle uh the personal contact situation?

We have multiple ways of doing that for large project.

We uh you already have uh the the project coming in with a pre-development meeting, and then we have scheduled uh sometime face-to-face, sometimes through uh virtual meeting to talk about the project even before they submit.

And also recently, we understand there's some concern about that for new construction in the past.

People submit and people just review that.

There is not a direct contact of person, just recently, about three months ago, we have one person take care of all the new project.

Basically, when the new concept come in, this uh person will immediately send email to the developer or the property owner saying, I'm your case manager, I'm here to help you, and contact me.

Here's my contact information.

So it's much much better in even just last few months.

So I definitely understand that concern.

Uh we're trying to improve the timeline.

We also want to make sure we have very customer friendly staff and we are there to help them uh no matter what kind of format the customer prefer.

I appreciate that.

Friendliness is absolutely critical, but authority is more critical.

Somebody has got to be able to say, uh, you can do this, it's okay.

If there's a question, somebody's got to take the responsibility on your side, and I'm not saying you don't, but I'm saying that's what the business public requires.

That's not to say uh if somebody says can I do this, somebody has to be able to say yes or no, and and definitively take that responsibility.

And so I I would hope that that would be something that you'll bake in to your overall strategy.

The this is um this is really important to me.

This is a personal issue in that when I say personal, I want Dallas to survive and to flourish and to advance.

And the only way we can do it is if we create a vibrant real estate development uh activity level in this community, and that's your job.

You got to help us do that.

Um so my other my other qu and again, I'm not criticizing you, I'm trying to give you the encouragement to let us be advocates for you.

And if our if our developing community feels like they're being responded to, that they're being helped, and that they can get their projects moving, you guys are are winners and we're winners.

Um, do you still have the Q team set up?

We do, they are very, very busy.

Okay, and so so people can go through an expedited process.

If you have a large project, can you do you have a dedicated person that you'll assign to that project that would be able to manage it, make sure that they're the that they're the eyes and ears of being able to maneuver through the system to help somebody?

Yes.

Uh as a matter of fact, you know, just into QT, we have another team, uh kind of concealer services, for example, the Convention Center, we all know how important it is.

We have a team take care of a special projects like that.

They do they do even help the customers submit the plan to make sure the plans complete.

So yes, those are new that that team was uh developed about um uh less than a year ago.

So we have we are making some changes.

Do you have a person inside or a department inside that basically can help coordinate with approvals from other people?

Yes, buyer from health from other departments so that you don't have one person running around who's a who's trying to to get everybody together so that there's cross collaboration or cross-advisory or cross uh uh indication to help people get through the departments without being stranded in a maze.

Yes, we actually have a team of that.

Okay, that needs to be promoted.

You've got to get credit for that.

I know we got that about uh nine months ago, yes.

And I don't I know you're building it, and I I applaud you for it, and I'm not being critical.

I really want to make sure that the public knows what you're doing, that you that you get credit for, but also that it becomes effective and that because this is a department that's very important, anyway.

Thank you for your presentation, and please uh don't lose sight of the fact that if somebody comes to your door, I hope they can open the door, they don't have to knock and wait for somebody to uh to answer that there's a place where people can show up and and ask for help and that somebody would be there to really help them and get them uh get them uh satisfactorily uh successful in completing their project.

Yes, we have several locations just for that purposes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all for the presentation.

Obviously, processing time is key.

Um can do we have a goal uh that we're trying to uh get to.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh so for the new uh residential, for example, we already cut uh the timeline in half right now.

We are uh about 107, not counting Q team.

Q team is much faster, regular, and we would like to get that under 100.

Um we've been talking to some other cities real recently, we're doing fairly well compared to other cities.

Our residential is really really leading, leading the country.

Uh uh is between seven, actually five to seven working days for residential.

And the days we're talking about is actually working uh calendar day, not working day, so it's pretty a hundred days, probably equivalent to about uh 70 days, so pretty good, yes.

We would like to uh make our new um application, new permitting under 100 days, is even um uh Q team is much less than that.

Okay.

What about commercial?

Commercial new is under 100 days for commercial addition, it's very quick, five days right now.

It's very, very good for commercial addition, that means you're adding, you know, certain square foot is about 40 some days.

Commercial new our goal is to make it under 100 days, we're getting there.

And so I I think to be fair again with staff, there's some projects that are very uh a lot of intensive review, and there's some other, you know, maybe just an apartment complex versus a high rise.

And so I think if we have a distinction between the two, that should show the work that we're doing.

Um, so maybe just a recommendation of having different um graphs for the commercial properties.

Yes, uh, I forgot to mention that the days measured is actually medium days, you know.

If you have a children's hospital, it takes two years from beginning to end.

It's very typical.

If you have a small restaurant that usually takes just number of weeks, not like months.

So it's a medium is the one in the middle.

Okay, and then um are applicants able to submit virtually or only in person or both.

They can submit obviously anywhere, but if they have a hard time submitting it on their own, we have a customer center.

They can come in and we can help them.

Uh but all the application has to be in digitally, but there's a number of ways we can help them.

One of them they come to office.

So I know you mentioned the consultations being available.

Prior to someone submitting a uh project, are they able to do a demonstration course so that they have a better understanding and are familiar with the online um Dallas now?

We have produced several videos uh that's available online the other day with how customers don't know with sentiment we do is that wow, okay, and they can follow that step-by-step uh the training we do that's available online.

That's great.

Um and as we go into our our budget season, uh staffing levels.

How do we feel that we're doing with staffing?

I'm glad you brought it up.

But last year, as you know, we struggled with our revenue for various reasons.

So we have to cut 58 partitions.

It looked like we have gone a little too far.

So this year we're going to ask uh for some of those back because not only we just see um increase, uh we also see a lot of big projects, the convention center, the chosen hospital in is in the uh process of being inspected.

Um, some other uh project that in the pipeline, the you know police academy, and there's another hospital in the six billion dollars, and the school, which I'm gonna talk a little bit about school just pause 6.2 million dollar billion dollar bond, that's gonna be make us a lot of just a lot of work, and which is a good problem to a house.

So we are going to ask um to get some of those partitions back, not the entire 58% uh 58 partition, but probably um you know 15 16 percent in that range so that we can um continue to function better without um backlog and continue to provide excellent customer service.

Okay, so we will ask some partitions back, okay.

Uh and you mentioned some of the struggles that we had.

Um what changes have we implemented in order to capture all fees from our developers?

Um I I know you were mentioning about that, so there was a mistake made um uh a couple years ago when the fee was um trying to be in place uh that was uh um mistake has been corrected, but um I did start looking at that, but that ordnance was adopted by city council with that error in there.

I don't know what can go back and ask those money back, but moving forward that has been corrected and we have seen additional revenue um not just based on additional um uh you know project but also uh the revenue that we uh meant to collect uh collect.

So we have seen the revenue in this year, amazing.

We already see close to 10% more revenue than projected.

So even though I said I would like to have some of the partition back, that can be paid for for the additional revenue.

Okay, so so thank you for for making that correction.

We want to make sure that one is we're recapture capturing every dime, but also that that allows for possible new staffing uh so that we can be at the right level.

Yes, uh any other questions seeing none, thank you for the presentation.

We'll now go to briefing memo um C.

Chairman, uh for item C D and E C D E and F.

We had not planned to proactively present these items, but we're here to uh give a quick overview or answer specific questions.

Sure.

Um, any questions?

Uh Councilmember Roth on uh you can go on C, uh D and E, we'll take them all together.

Okay.

Um Kevin, could you please explain to me what really is a new markets tax credit?

What what how does it?

Well, if you thought OZs were complicated, new markets tax credit.

Thankfully, we have Deputy Director Lapesca.

Is happy to give a reader's digest explanation.

So the New Markets Tax Credit Program is a department from U.S.

Treasury where it was established as a companion program to LITEC basically to support community development and low income census tracks.

In what kind of track?

Low income census tracks.

Talk a little louder, please.

Okay.

So the program establishes allocation that is awarded to community development entities, and the allocation is for tax credits.

The tax credit to the new markets investor is 39 cents of their federal tax liability, and then the investor purchases those tax credits at a discount from the allocation that a CDE has available, and with that purchase that becomes the subsidy that benefits the new markets project.

So it's a it's a tax credit similar to to the tax credits on other projects that we do.

They can then sell that tax credit to obtain the uh the to monetize it, then they've got down payment money to do it.

So it's a really beneficial uh community development tool that involves no cash out of the city's pockets to support projects throughout the city.

And the the tax credits are coming from the federal government?

Correct.

They're awarded by treasury to CDEs on a competitive basis.

And the and these and the requirements for the tax credit are these types of specific programs?

So the like Salvation Army, the the development of the of the uh forest uh so Dallas Development Fund was created with two kind of primary goals, and CDEs can have slightly different focuses, but the City of Dallas Dallas Development Fund was created to support job creation and community service projects.

And and where do these how do you how do you access these tax credit programs?

They're not coming through HFC, they're not coming through PFC, so they're coming through your office through economic development.

Correct.

So the program is managed by the Dallas Development Fund, which is a separate 501c3 that is controlled by the city of Dallas, but it has its own board.

Um and we received an allocation in December, December 23rd, I think right before Christmas of 55 million from the most recent round of tax credits.

DDF then did a call for projects, and we receive submissions for projects.

We also accept projects on a rolling basis.

There's information about that on our website.

Um so we review projects while we have allocation available.

The board reviews the projects over a series of public meetings.

Um they make a recommendation, and then we come to city council for approval of that final allocation.

And just to clarify to make sure I understand it too, tax credit has nothing to do with tax abatement.

They still be real estate taxes, they still pay have to go through zoning, they still have to get the project approved.

Uh if if the city through or economic development wants to do other uh uh entitlements or other development grants or something, those are all outside of this particular program, correct.

And so basically we have 55 million dollars of potential track tax credits that you all can allocate through this what's it called?

The uh the develop the what is it called?

The Dallas Development Fund.

That's that's who who basically allocates it, vets it and promotes it.

Correct.

The only clarification I'll say is we don't have 55 million of tax credits we have of allocation, so it ends up netting about you know 20 cents to that one dollar of tax credit.

Great, okay.

Thank you for the clarification.

All right, any other questions on either items?

Okay, um I do have a couple questions on item F.

On item F.

Um, how many or first of all, is this uh business currently located in Dallas?

No, this would be a brand new market for them.

And how many jobs are we creating?

They are expecting to create 166 jobs, but they're required to create 150.

Okay.

And do we know at what wage?

Uh they're anticipating an average wise of 55,000.

Okay.

And is the location where this warehouse is going in in a appropriate location?

Yeah, it's an existing building that's already developed in the inland port area.

So yes, it aligns, it's light industrial zoned.

Perfect.

All right, and this is only a uh it's not a hundred percent abatement.

Correct, it's fifty percent.

Okay, great.

Uh Chair, um, I'm gonna go to I saw Council Member Roth first.

I'm sorry.

You know what council member Roth uh leave.

Go ahead.

I'm gonna go to the uh Chair Ridley.

So I just had one concern about this, and that is that the payback for the city seems to be minimal if we're gonna be uh giving up through tax abatement 1.38 million dollars over 10-year period, and we're only receiving direct economic impact of 1.52 million, that's not much of a payback for this kind of an investment, and it seems to me that we typically get a higher payback multiples of what we invest.

So can you address that?

Yeah, I mean, this is a special kind of project, and that the building is already built and it's sitting vacant.

Um I would add also that um the 1.52 million in net benefit to the city over the 10-year period actually already excludes the value of the abatement, so the the gross benefit is obviously including the value of the abatement that we would otherwise get.

Um so first and foremost, this is a job creation project.

Um so it's uh hundred fifty 150 plus jobs at very good wages, it's not a warehouse distribution project, which we would typically see in the inland port.

This is actual light manufacturing.

So what is the source of the 1.52 million in net benefit?

Will that be in tax revenue or will that be the community at large?

No, it's this is a fiscal impact, so it's tax revenue that still comes to the general fund.

Okay, so through other 50 percent that we will still collect correct will ultimately accrue to 1.52 million over 10 years.

And and other forms of taxes, as opposed to the building remaining vacant.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Blair.

Well, I'm I don't really have questions, I have a comment, if you will.

Um there was a lot of communications back and forth between between the economic development team and I regarding this particular development.

Um and I too had a lot of questions and and concerns this morning they were able to abate the those concerns, especially since this is a new this would be a new opportunity within the my district as well as for the city because unlike most um projects we see where we don't we forego all of the tax and we get no benefit in return.

Um not only are we getting some some it's only a 50% abatement, but what we also get is the opportunity to get jobs, not jobs at 10 and 15 and 18 dollars an hour, but these jobs are are gonna be 55 million, 55,000 annual jobs plus benefits.

Um they are they have to be here 10 years, otherwise there's penalties for withdrawing within that that period of time.

So over a 10 year period we're gonna get a benefit, we're gonna get and and I spoke with the the the team that is proposing to come here for this this morning, and they're willing to do some collaboration within our educational system, not only from a high school, but from from the colleges that are surrounding it, in order to make sure that the quality of employee that they get can not only be sustainable, so that they there won't be so hopefully there is not the churn that we normally see in warehouse jobs.

In a warehouse job, they get a job, they're there for a few months and then they're gone, but because they will partner with the educational process in the educational uh facilities that are in the community we can we can better provide services to the company as they provide a 10 year benefit to us thank you I think so um Kevin does this need a motion no it's a it's an informational it's an upcoming agenda item uh for next Wednesday yeah the tent on on uh June 10th so no the committee doesn't have to take action it's informational okay uh council member blair on item f I move that we move this project along to uh city council for the May 10th uh uh item agenda item with with a favorable with the favorable vote to move this to council for the council to approve okay there is a motion and a second um any discussion member rough just a couple a couple more questions I'm in favor of this project I believe based on what I've read on it and I think it's it would be helpful to explain the positive things about this this particular tax uh and uh and uh what you're talking about here it's only 50 percent of the increased value in the B in the business personal property tax that's is that correct that's correct under state law that governs abatements for economic development we we cannot abate taxes on existing value so it's only the increased value from their increased investment for their business personal property inside the building it still provides real estate tax payments that's correct the building is is already existing it already generates taxes this abatement will not affect the taxes for from real property um and then you're we're also they're also requesting a uh a uh tax credit from the Dallas uh what's that what did we just talk about the Dallas development funds so this that will come later we haven't taken this to the board yet for that process um so we haven't done a first look we haven't done an approval but that was part of our incentive offer because of this location and because of its focus on manufacturing it's like a perfect fit for the new markets program um and so we anticipate that will come in probably September um and so again that will be a benefit but it won't be cash out of the city's that's that's my point this is money that's coming from federal government it's not coming from us number three we're number four we're we're we're uh we are uh this is a little bit of a hard burn to me but we're but they are agreeing to to uh to uh conform to the uh living wage uh requirement and that you all have talked to them about that they understand that and yes they're good with that's to our benefit too so this is one of those weird deals where it seems to align with the right ideas it doesn't cost us money it promotes new jobs it gets a a dead building on the market it gives us real estate value we're still getting half the business personal property tax so it's not we're not giving away the store and this is something I think uh at least on its face makes sense and I applaud you for being able to negotiate something like this if I in fact I understand it correctly which I'm not sure I do thank you thank you there is a motion and a second all in favor aye any opposed motion carries uh we are going to bring I are we gonna talk about any of the others or do we do um they were yeah we can do them all we're all see through uh e or sorry um so yeah we we've had that opportunity but if you have a what which item did you have a question on?

Well on on G in particular that we're talking about so I was uh oh were you getting there?

Okay, so item G we're going to hold till our next meeting and bring item G back.

Okay, and then D and E and H.

Oh, I'm sorry, um did not see uh uh H on that side.

Um H has to do with E Vs.

Can we push that?

Sure.

Well let's bring uh G and H back to the next um Eco Dev meeting.

And then on D and E.

Uh is it could I ask, is there is there an opportunity to create a similar program for other areas or is this is this just uh a dedicated program just to district three and five?

So no the the these dollars are uh if I uh understand correctly are dedicated dollars to these specific districts.

Uh but I think Heather or Kevin can talk to that.

Yes, thank you.

The program is allowed under our policy that allows us to do council specific council district specific small business programs.

The caveat is the council member must identify discretionary funding for this.

Yeah, I'm sorry to say that again.

The council member must identify discretionary funding for the program.

So for the district three program, council member Gracie has identified $200,000 in ARPA money and a million in his 2024 bond allocation.

Um and for the D5 program, Councilmember Recendez is reprogramming nine hundred fifty thousand dollars of twenty seventeen bond money that was being used for a neighborhood empowerment zone program, and he's moving it over to this new program.

So yes, we can create one for your district as long as they're discretionary funding, and we can work with you on the specifics to be whatever the best fit is for your district.

I mean that that that actually would be an interesting side briefing to to learn about that stuff because listen if we've got funds that we can reallocate and and put into something that'll help um you know fix up areas and and and sort of re renovate places, that would be great.

District eleven does have council district specific allocation of the uh proposition G from 2024, I think three million.

Um if you if you would allow me to get that from you at some point, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

The time is now four forty three, and we are adjourned.