The Quincy City Council met on August 11, 2025 at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting included a presentation on the River Edge Redevelopment Zone, reports from Quincy Township, public comment, approvals of consent agenda items, discussions on the Driftwood Campground expansion, and the first reading of an ordinance to reorganize the Department of Planning and Development.
Note: Portions of the transcript were of poor audio quality; details from the Driftwood Campground discussion and some financial figures were not fully discernible.
Good evening. Welcome to tonight for the counter meeting. And to get us started, we'll talk and uh respect them with having some. And the later nearly happened. Good evening. Good evening. This is pretty council. I think I should commend all of you for still believing and devotion and closing. But I have involved new and look at the evening. But we can still consult immunity and spectrum. So we can have a special plan to uh invitation this evening. Um really without the signs and spirits and celebrities. I would like to be introduced Ryan, who is the sixteenth student, and we'll be starting a question from the house and back still, I thought it will be a popular talent. Thank you, then. And before I talk meeting to order, um, Jason, I believe you have a presentation for us on the river edge new development plan. Good evening, uh, Jason Care with uh development director. Um yeah, we're going to talk about the river edge redevelopment zone and what exactly it is. This is a state code, and the goal of the program is to help provide and redevelop environmental and time properties based the river in Illinois. The program encourages industrial and commercial growth to various tax and centers. Awareness, St. Louis, Elgin, Peoria, and Ratford. The uh program has expanded in 2023 to 2025 to include, you can see the about a dozen more communities, including Quincy. Quincy is the only city that has access to a river edge designation from the state of Illinois. In the entire state of Illinois, there are only six River Edge redevelopment zone communities, including country. You have a map at your colours of the zone, and it can be a little difficult to tell when you look at the boundaries to the north, Lakers Street, to the South Post and Street. Uh, the river is the boundary to the west, and the rule of the River Edge redevelopment zone is that it must be 4500 feet from the actual river. So we were able to start up on each two forest. We have the move down to Man Street as the River Curve. We were able to reprint to on a few sections and then we had to take it back down as the river codes again. So everything in that zone is considered the river edge redevelopment zone. We did kind of get into the pillars that you've seen on there, the red outlines as we get a little later in this uh display. So how to receive this designation uh where it started with the district because commerce and breader, uh, they had a lobbyist. The participant that makes this in 2024 to get things be included in this program. They were successful. Uh, we were added at the end of the session by the legislature in the summer of 2024, uh, soon after that inclusion. Uh, the Penning Office started working to develop the River Edge Zone and submitted the application to the state in late 2024. About 67 months later, the state of Illinois certified our zone then in May of this year. So can this zone do? Uh, can provide access to Captain Central for economic development and community revaluization. It encourages the reuse of historic buildings. It attracts developers, investors, and businesses seeking long-term redevelopment opportunities, and it preserves conscious short identity by generating new economic activities. The two of the program is really the access to the historic preservation tax credit. Currently, the state of Illinois offers a competitor historic preservation tax credit program. They set aside 25 million dollars to cover the entire state, and the maximum award is three million dollars. Uh locally uh $53100, the hotel project they would secure one of those three million dollar allotments from the state. Uh these income tax credits can equal 25% of the qualified rehab expensive. Uh, we said they're competitive we paid in talking with people from around the state. The application window opens and about a minute later it places because they've already got more than enough projects to show the entire um program. What's different is river edge eliminates the competitive need to. There's no maximum award for this program.