Here we go.

I'm uh Mayor Andrew Moore, and I'm calling to order the study session on March 18th, 2025.

We have four agenda to items tonight.

Uh, the economic incentives overview presentation.

This was moved from our last meeting to this meeting simply because the meeting was going too too long.

Um, we also will um learn about the I-25 year gateway overview update.

Um we will go through the legislative agenda and to see if there's any uh directional changes in that.

Um then we'll move on to the town area beneficial electrification plan draft with partners in energy, and last um there will be a discussion of oil and gas.

Um we will stop the meeting tonight right around 9:30 p.m.

And so Malcolm and I have spoke about um the fact that um if anything isn't urgent um prioritize it last.

And so this uh the order of items tonight um actually staff uh set the order, and so um um I think we're set, and with that, I think I'll turn it over to Jack and we'll talk a little bit about economic incentives and yeah to go from there.

Absolutely.

My name is Jack Hill, this is well.

I'm a specialist for the town of Erie economic development department.

Um here with you all today to talk about economic incentives and what that might mean for the town.

Um quick overview of the agenda.

I'll give a kind of a quick background, incentive overviews, kind of some incentive types that there are eligible, typical eligible industries, the incentive process as a whole, our kind of staff recommendation, and open it up for questions and discussions at the end.

Um so currently there is no town-wide incentive policy.

That's kind of something that I was kind of shocked to find when I first started working here a year and a half ago.

Um I learned that's because we were a statutory town at the time, and now we are home rule, and now we kind of have the ability to craft a true economic incentive policy.

Um we have a couple of tools in the tool belt right now.

Right now we have the enhanced sales tax incentive program, the STIP program, which is codified.

Um, I'm not sure it's ever been used.

Um, but it's there, it exists.

Um we have metro districts, um, and we have a separate policy for Tor.

Um and so the goal tonight is kind of um we we kind of started this process of crafting a policy and then kind of stopped ourselves and we're like, we should probably bring this to council and talk about um incentive types, you know, what others in the region are doing and what kind of makes the most sense for Gary.

So um that's why we're here tonight.

Um economic incentives are um typically targeted uh public assistance to businesses and developers to uh catalyze the local economy, whether it's through uh job creation, capital investment, um filling a market gap, um revitalizing old buildings underutilized land, um towns utilize incentives to um incentivize businesses and and developers to build something, create something that might not exist otherwise.

Um and so our mission is is up there.

It's is it's to um both create new jobs in capital investment in town, but but also attract um new and unique users that the town is kind of um say desperate for, but currently we're we're losing out um a lot of money to our neighbors, especially on the retail and restaurant side, and so having a dedicated policy um kind of creates not only guardrails, but having a targeted approach to incentives that I think would be beneficial.

We think would be beneficial to the town.

Do you want questions as we go or um to questions as we go?

Yeah, um so the incentives um as we go.

I'm thinking about the restaurants.

If we had a standardized policy, does that help you in the negotiations by saying kind of like our UDC?

Um, I think help Sarah to a large degree when she's doing development agreements.

Would a policy in this frame also help you, or does it create too much constraint?

Or you know, where's that balance?

Yeah, and I think that's kind of what we why we're having this discussion is because you can make this as broad as you want.

You can also make it very targeted, and so I think there is a healthy balance between the two.

Saying that this these are the type of businesses we want to attract in the immediate future because especially when it comes to retail of restaurants and the independent and more local type businesses, it's very difficult to build out new retail and to build new retail, especially.

I know we talked to a lot of developers that see retail as a as a loss leader in most cases, where um without public assistance, they're likely not going to build these larger developments.

So it is definitely helpful for us to have something to point to to be like these are the things we can do to help you know get you over the hump and make your dream a reality.

Um it definitely helps give us the tools we need to be successful.

Right, and I guess uh not to be, I mean, just put it out there for you to maybe answer as you continue to go forward in a similar way that the UDC sets our code, but then we have PDs that sit on individual developments that may change the UDC.

Um, you know, is it does there need to be a mechanism for that, right?

In general, here's our incentives in separately.

Do we need to do something where council could approve more flexibility?

I don't know.

Anyway, I'll just put it out there for you to think about as we're going forward.

Yeah, that that's helpful.

And I think for us, it's um we our desire to have this incentive policy is you know in reality, we could have not have one and and still do one off type incentive.

Um, but it really does provide us some barrails and some focus on what we should really be going after through council guidance.

Okay.

So if we had some stronger policy, would it not create like similar kinds of businesses using these policies and incentives?

Yeah, we have a way of you know, like having the spread of businesses so that you know they don't compete and you know, yeah.

We'll go through this a little bit more when we start kind of getting into more specific industries.

Um, I think we've identified industries that we want to attract already and and needs that we have in our community already that there's there's market gaps here, and um, I think anybody that works and lives here knows that their options are limited pretty much uh on the restaurant side specifically.

Um and so it's it's it's it's attracting uh a variety of of users um that we don't necessarily have here, and so what we don't want to create is like to your point, but so broad, it's it's open to everybody uh the possibility of cannibalization in the market where you're you know you're incentivizing a business that's already here and it impacts your others, it's just taking dollars away from them and hurting their business, and those businesses are closing down, and then you have consolidation of the market.

So that's what you want to avoid, and that's why we kind of want to narrow it as well.