Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Commission - Minutes - 10/19/2016MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2016 Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Ave. Time: 11:00am–1:00pm For Reference Wade Troxell, Mayor & Council Liaison Josh Birks, Staff Liaison 221-6324 Dianne Tjalkens, Minutes 221-6734 Commission Members Present Commission Members Absent Sam Solt, Chair Denny Otsuga Ann Hutchison Linda Stanley Glen Colton Ted Settle Kristin Owens Alan Curtis Craig Mueller Staff Present Staff Absent Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support Josh Birks, Economic Health Director Patrick Rowe, Redevelopment Coordinator Wade Troxell, Mayor Guests Dale Adamy, citizen Meeting called to order at 11:07am Public Comment—Dale Adamy: Attended Finance Committee meeting on Monday—saw presentation by Tiana. Said that had presented already to Economic Advisory Commission and received comments. Chamber was also represented. Think EAC should go to Finance when a group is presenting comments that were given by EAC. Review and Approval of Minutes: September minutes approved as amended. Corrections: Spell out acronyms: VMT (vehicle miles travelled), CCI (construction cost index), DBG (Denver-Boulder-Greeley), CPI (consumer pricing index). Correct spelling of assess. Agenda Review—No changes. Commission Member/Staff Updates—None. AGENDA ITEM 1—Public Comment Follow Up Process, Sam Solt Decide if want to add comments as agenda items for action or discussion at the following meeting. Will discuss whether to insert “Follow Up on Public Comment” into monthly agenda. 1 | Page Discussion/Q & A: • Follow example set by City Council. Can be addressed under other business at the end of the meeting. Should not dedicate 15 minutes of meeting to addressing public comment. • Chair or someone else should consciously decide if there is something to do about the comment or not. We owe that much to people who come to give comment. o Example of suggestion that EAC have a representative going to Finance Committee. Public comments deserve some degree of discussion. • Don’t want to set precedent that will take action on all public comments. o Council makes comments on public comment at the end of the meeting, if they chose to. • Would like Chair to decide. o Suggest that we have discretion to decide if want a public comment item to become an agenda item. Will add discussion on liaison-ship to Finance Committee to November agenda.  Glen volunteered to be informal liaison to Finance Committee as he is able. ACTION ITEMS: Sam will work with Josh to update agenda. AGENDA ITEM 2—Capital Expansion Fees Recommendation, Board Discussion Commission reviewed draft recommendation. Discussion/Q & A: • Appreciate Tiana providing draft recommendation. Since meeting a month later, makes it much easier to remember what was discussed. Recollect the board not recommending phasing in the fees; suggest adding this to the draft recommendation. • Recommend instituting the higher fees, rather than getting behind. • Several arenas they are auditing every five years. Data gets old, then do a large update. If there are many areas they assess the cost on every five years, suggest they pick two or three areas to update annually, then do a rolling average. Then they are more timely. o A lot of discussion was on how often the City calculates fees. Mike Beckstead was strongly suggesting less frequent updates to avoid an up and down in the fees. • Suggest phasing in over time due to impact on affordable housing with large fee increase overnight. Multifamily will be hit hardest. Already see limited supply. If add more fees, adds to cost of next product. Limits ability to bring more affordable housing into the market. Real concern for workforce in our community. Horak says added cost on new house doesn’t affect price of an existing home, but those in our market would disagree. Need to phase fees in over time. o Need fees that fairly reflect cost of capital infrastructure. Update regularly; do not phase in. If have special needs like affordable housing, can waive fees. If don’t collect enough, have to take out of general funds, or assess a tax, or don’t have adequate infrastructure and can’t allow building. Need adequate impact fees to build infrastructure as needed. Protects tax payers from paying cost of new growth. Council has phased things in when haven’t collected enough over time, and have gotten behind. Favor waivers and fee reductions for true affordable housing. • Would like more specific information for northeast Fort Collins. o Some development is not being allowed out there because intersections don’t have capacity. o Chick-egg issue. Fees are supposed to pay for the road, but can’t build without the road. o Can have capital expansion fees in that area. • Always behind the curve. o Make capital projects a higher priority in the budgeting process. o Why should development A pay for the road for development B? o Continuing to push dirt in areas that have insufficient intersections. • How many roads have been built with strictly general fund dollars (sales tax dollars)? o Roads have special assessment to pay for them? o Yes. One of many strategies. • Lincoln—doing $15M in improvements and only small amount from impact fees. Got general fund overages and other funds. Sales tax improvements paying for Willow. Those are tax increases on general citizens. Can have philosophy that all citizens pay for all roads, or new development pays 2 | Page proportionate share to bring up to City standards. If impact fees go up, that is the cost of doing business. • Methodology okay, but want phase in? o No. Only covers part of cost. Don’t have full picture of government cost of putting something on the ground. Also have utility fees going up, and transportation capital fees. o Finance Committee saw presentation on stacking of costs, relative to other communities. • Like point of having exceptions for affordable housing. • Subsidizing growth if don’t charge what it actually costs to have the infrastructure. Council can decide to only subsidize affordable housing. Get congestions, insufficient roads, and other issues. • Can also comment on price of housing and fee stacking impact on affordable housing. • Primary driver of housing cost in Fort Collins is demand, not that we’re adding $1000 in fees. Have many people willing to pay higher amount to live here. Drives price up for everyone. Fees have not grown as much as housing cost. Should not be messing around with fees to accommodate a market issue. If don’t do fees, won’t have the money to pay for infrastructure. • Is there a problem that Finance is trying to solve? Are we running out of money? o Transition from greenfield to infill. How do you capture funding for infrastructure? Need other strategies. o Revenue from greenfield diminishes as greenfield goes away. o Mall is on public infrastructure. Part of URA is for existing infrastructure. Allowable public expenditure. o Greenfield is less expensive to develop than infill.  Ex: Woodward had to relocate high tension power lines; moving utilities is more expensive than installing.  Building in place of Perkins is very expensive. Less space to work within, drainage, parking, etc. • Growth is incredibly expensive. Multiple ways to pay for it. One methodology is to have new growth pay for need for new infrastructure. Other ways are to do a URA, sales tax, general fund dollars. Should do ones that have clear methodology. Not charging for improvement, just keeping at level of today’s service. • Agree that need phasing and allowing exemptions for affordable housing. • Trust Finance to develop best methodology, but don’t yet know the financial burden on development. If incredibly high, different than it being negligible. Would not recommend immediate implementation without knowing bigger impacts. • Don’t know if it is our charge to get this much in depth on process. Agreed they need to move ahead, but don’t know when or how much. Glen moved and Craig seconded the following motion: The Economic Advisory Commission supports the updated fees recommended by the Capital Expansion Fee and Transportation Capital Expansion Fee Studies. Of the options presented to EAC for fee calculations, the commission was in favor of using the “cost of construction” valuation for capital expansion fees and the Methodology Change Plus Option for the transportation fees. While both of these options result in higher fees, the EAC discussed the importance of a defensible methodology for calculating the fees and that the City should collect the fees recommended at that level so as not overburden other revenue streams to pay for future capital needs. Motion passed, 5-1-1. Ted abstained. AGENDA ITEM 3—Land Bank Recommendation Discussion/Q & A: • Staff looking for more flexibility in ordinance. o Can only have affordable housing on those parcels. o Have Work Session next week, then will draft changes. Can follow up in a later meeting. Ann moved and Kristin seconded the following motion: The Economic Advisory Commission supports continued evaluation of the Land Bank ordinance. 3 | Page Motion passed, 6-0-1. Ted abstained. AGENDA ITEM 4—Lyric Cinema Café Tax Increment Assistance Update, Patrick Rowe Site is on College south of Hickory, across from Jax. Larger site provides opportunity for expansion—500 seat theater, full service restaurant, and bike-in outdoor theater. 50% URA application—as taxes are collected they would be paid out to the Lyric. An Urban Renewal Authority (URA) is established to assist development and redevelopment in blighted areas. Generally the area has infrastructure challenges, poverty, etc. Fort Collins has two plan areas: North College and Prospect South. North College set up in 2006—permitted to draw tax increment financing for 25 years. Set up an area and any increase in property taxes attributable to new development flows to the URA. Uses that funding to support development. In North College, issued a bond and can issue debt to allow development outcomes. The future Lyric site is currently vacant and has development challenges such as stormwater and area factors. When developed, the area will collect additional property tax. Lyric requesting $209K in URA support. Lyric would like to use funds to resolve stormwater issues. West side of North College has significant stormwater issues. Stormwater requirements are challenging for small sites in this area—no regional improvements that are easy to tie into, so have to do detention onsite. Grading challenges make least expensive design putting detention pond closer to College; however, not ideal for business. Discussion/Q & A: • What happens to old space? o He is leasing current location. Rents are increasing in Old Town. Limited in what would want to invest in old site. This allows more site control and expansion of business. • How many URA proposals per year, what percentage support is typical? o Only two plan areas, so don’t get very many projects. Changes depending on where we are in timeline of the URA. There was more activity in North College—Aspen Heights, King Soopers, road improvements, etc. Last year only one project came to fruition. Lyric applied last fall. The mall is another notable project. Financing parameters have changed over time. URA finances are dependent on tax increment dollars. Projections have not always been 100% accurate. The Summit had some assumptions on increases in property value that did not come to fruition, so the URA had to borrow from the City to fund the deal. Also had downturn in market at that time. Parameters were developed after this. 50% is firmly within financing parameters, but can go up to 90% under special circumstances. Can also invest in projects such as road improvements that will not increase tax increment. • Typical that request is tied to specific improvements? o Yes. Not legally a lot of restrictions, but URA likes to see funds invested in improvements that are more public facing, benefit the region, or address environmental issues. Secondarily they support façade and aesthetic improvements that are important for the area. • What action should commission take? o Have not weighed in on other URA activities. • Accepting latest iteration of application? o Doing financial and staff evaluation; going to URA Board. • Owner is motivated and has been successful. In City’s best interest to support a project with a successful track record. o Destination business that could draw new parts of community into North College. o Lyric is uniquely Fort Collins and a huge millennial draw. Live one block north of future site and nothing else is happening there. o Will expand Old Town. • Have questions about financial stability of URA. Will the URA be able to collect enough to pay off all projects? o Yes. Each plan area is different. North College currently has surplus of funds. This proposal would be based on new tax increment coming into the area. Work with County on what they will assess property at post-construction. If something less substantial happens there, or less money is collected, less is remitted for that parcel. 4 | Page • Is some of the money going to be used to deal with the floodplain? o Some URA funds used to invest in regional detention. May invest in preliminary studies to do NECCO-style (Northeast College Corridor Outfall) stormwater project on west side of College (similar to east of College). • Pleased to see application focus on stormwater rather than façade. Investing in things very difficult for a business to do by itself. If Lyric has $209K challenge for that small parcel, have challenges to other properties nearby as well. Pleased to hear that considering NECCO. o Businesses less likely to develop here with these infrastructure issues. • Lyric will be using detention pond as outdoor amphitheater. o Great use of the property. AGENDA ITEM 5—Growth Dialogue Issue Book, Sam Solt & Ted Settle The idea is to provide an opportunity to have a dialogue on growth using Kettering methodology. Would provide input to next iteration of City Plan. Spoke with Martín Carcasson at CSU—very consistent with what they do. They do four plans with the City annually; don’t charge for their services. Cameron Gloss, Planning Manager with the City, is excited as this project would help with City Plan. Discussions with Mayor have been mixed. Hard to separate general growth from economic growth. Schedule would be to begin Q2 2017. Mayor Troxell felt that this commission was working outside of its lines on this topic. If focus on economic growth, it is within the lines. Important issue to raise to city residents, since impacts to city are significant. Did not get answer on whether this project is worth completing, whether completed by EAC or not. Proceeding with intent on refining the document sent to members. Have heard concern that contentious issue. Meeting with Martín next week to understand cost and parameters. Discussion/Q & A: • One of the discussion items with Mayor Troxell was sustainability. If make it a sustainability platform, it becomes easier to support. Jackie Kozak Thiel could become host of the project. • Done a lot of good, hard work meeting with people to get this moving. What is timing of this compared to City Plan? o Fall of 2017 is when City Plan will begin. o Community has not had general discussion on growth and what is desired. Martín’s group does a good job with facilitation. Some may feel this is too controversial, or not within our scope, but urge group to continue with this project. Growth and economic growth are intricately tied together. o Communities that are shrinking are doing so because the jobs have left. • What is desired outcome? o Growth is number one issue this group has identified and important to community. Would like community to weigh in on an issue of that magnitude. Elected officials get some input, but potential for it to be biased input. o So packaging community input and presenting to Council for use in update of City Plan?  Yes. Also engaging citizenry, which is a City value.  Learning experience. Cameron said to have this kind of input, as opposed to a few people sharing their thoughts on what City Plan should have, would give them something more representative of what the community wants. • Does City Plan have a chapter on economic growth? o Many chapters: transportation, economic health, environmental, etc. o Could be a broad parameter that would frame City Plan. Ex: If community says growth is positive, would help guide the plan. • Is there a current vehicle that could be used to engage citizens to get that information? o There is a quality of life survey the City collects. Also, Cameron has done pop-up meetings around downtown with questions for Downtown Plan. o If there is something existing, is there a way to piggyback on that to ask the growth question. It is tried and true, accepted by the City and citizens. If the EAC institutes a second vehicle, may be susceptible to more scrutiny. Statistically significant—metrics are already in place— want it to be a legitimate poll. Add questions to existing survey.  Will follow up on this possibility. 5 | Page  First City Plan did a visual preference study, simple growth questions, but haven’t seen these types of questions since.  Section in survey on government that includes questions on planning for growth. • That is grading the City, not asking for more information. Could ask more open ended questions about challenges, concerns and excitement around growth. • Biggest concern is that if let growth move along its own trajectory, it may surpass what is good, and cannot be reversed. o If did survey, could show staff that citizens are concerned, then develop issue book that discusses levers to control growth. ACTION ITEMS: Find out if can work with quality of life survey to add questions on growth. Meeting Adjourned: 1:04pm Next Meeting: November 16 6 | Page