NewsOK: Innovative brainstorming sessions could produce a new type of...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Applying for corporate welfare?  Tsk tsk.

Avoiding double taxation.  Isn't that one of the main premises of this country?

[Hoss]

Applying for corporate welfare?  Tsk tsk.

Hey, if Exxon can do it....

[TheArtist]

Thought this might fit in this thread.

It's a new TIFF type program I have not heard of before. Has both arguable pros and cons but could be an over all positive in some circumstances.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/realestate/commercial/tax-program-aims-to-reverse-decades-long-decline-in-allentown.html?_r=4


ALLENTOWN, Pa. — More than 600,000 square feet of office and retail space is being built in the long-depressed center of this city, spurred by an unusual state-sanctioned project that permits revenues from tenants' tax bills to be used to pay down some of the debt incurred during construction....

The new development in this city of 119,000 has been spurred by the Neighborhood Improvement Zone, a state program that encourages businesses to move in by allowing developers to use designated tax revenues to pay off bonds and loans issued for capital improvements in the zone.

Aided by tax dollars that would otherwise go to state or local general funds, developers should be able to offer attractive rents to companies that bring in new workers — who in turn might move into or buy new apartments and support new shops and restaurants in what had been a blighted urban landscape.

National Penn Bancshares, one of the development's anchor tenants, will be paying 20 to 25 percent below the suburban Class A market rent for its new offices spanning 125,000 square feet, said J.B. Reilly, president of City Center Lehigh Valley, the developer. The bank began moving employees in this week.

The 11-floor building, which will be National Penn's new headquarters, contains 272,000 square feet of office space plus 28,000 square feet for restaurants and retail on the first floor.

Mr. Reilly said in an interview that some tenants are attracted not only by the favorable rents but also because they want to take part in reviving Allentown. "You are trying to incentivize development in challenged urban areas," he said.

The development also includes a seven-floor, 186,000-square-foot office building whose principal tenant will be Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown's biggest employer, which is scheduled to move into the new building on June 1, bringing about 500 employees to the city center.

Dr. Ronald Swinfard, chief executive of the nonprofit, said it would benefit by paying less rent per square foot than it does in its current suburban location — where it will retain some operations — but that it was mainly attracted to the new building because it will add to facilities for the community medicine that the group already offers elsewhere in Allentown.

"We wanted to be part of the revitalization of downtown Allentown," he said....

Two other Pennsylvania cities, Bethlehem and Lancaster, have recently been designated as City Reinvestment and Improvement Zones ("CRIZ") under a more recent law that is similar to the NIZ but restricts the tax benefits to revenues from out-of-state companies or, in the case of companies moving from elsewhere in Pennsylvania, to additional revenues that are generated in the new location.

The strength of the improvement zone model is that it depends on the developer's ability to attract revenue-generating tenants and is not based on state handouts, Mr. Reilly said. "They are pledging the tax revenues related to the developer's project to the developer's lender," he said. "It's really market driven. If the developer can't attract tenants, then the developer's going to be on the hook for repaying the loan."

But the program has its detractors. Stephen F. Thode, a professor of real estate at Lehigh University, argued that the improvement zone legislation is flawed because it does not require developers to create jobs in return for what he called "subsidies" in the zone. "It's not true economic development. It's simply moving existing businesses and existing jobs from one location to another. No new jobs are being created," he said.

But Mr. Thode said the legislature "got smart" when it passed the city improvement zone because that law links the use of tax dollars to job creation....
"It's taking an area that was an eyesore and breathing life into it," Mr. Cunningham said.

To rebuild a city center, it is necessary to create a compact, safe, walkable environment that meets the needs of younger workers, not only for good jobs, but also for an urban lifestyle that is replacing the suburban environment sought by the previous generation, Mr. Reilly said.

"People are not clamoring to that suburban lifestyle like they were in the '70s," he said. "It's a different day."

[chimchim]

Curious, TheArtist, what you think about the council's recent decision to grant 3 buildings permission to leave the FBC?

Most in our circles are saying that's it for, FBC.  It's dead.  PlaniTulsa is no more.  Doom and gloom.  The world has ended.  etc. etc.

From the TulsaNow board: http://tulsanow.org/index.php/the-war-on-the-pearl-appears-to-be-ending/ ...I have some of my own thoughts, that I'll write about on the blog in a couple weeks, but wanted to know what you and maybe some others think.

[TheArtist]

First off we need to get the FBC applied in the rest of the area.  As I mentioned when we tried to go into a building that was supposedly in the FBC area on 11th, minimum parking requirements, etc. were still in place. I can only surmise that these buildings were pulled out of some future FBC implementation?  

No I don't think FBCd's or PlaniTulsa is dead.  But regardless we still need to push the city to be updating it's zoning to allow good urban development in those areas where we would like urban development to be.

One critical element that seems to have been missing this whole time is education.  We need to educate the parties involved.  Not all will come on board with any change, but I believe enough would to put more momentum on our side.

A 5-7 minute video laying out some basic facts would do wonders.  Every property owner, and especially new property owner, needs to be approached and met with.  Welcome them to the area, let them know who we are and present them with the video and a quick summary handout.

I run into people all the time who have no clue that sweet idyll "Mayberry main street" development is illegal in Tulsa.  That the current zoning not only outlaws it but actively works to go against any plans to create classic urban/pedestrian friendly, transit friendly development.  

[patric]

Maybe re-brand?

(AP) With climate change still a political minefield across the nation despite the strong scientific consensus that it's happening, some community leaders have hit upon a way of preparing for the potentially severe local consequences without triggering explosions of partisan warfare: Just change the subject.

Big cities and small towns are shoring up dams and dikes, using roof gardens to absorb rainwater or upgrading sewage treatment plans to prevent overflows. Others are planting urban forests, providing more shady relief from extreme heat. Extension agents are helping farmers deal with an onslaught of newly arrived crop pests.

But in many places, especially strongholds of conservative politics, they're planning for the volatile weather linked to rising temperatures by speaking of "sustainability" or "resilience," while avoiding no-win arguments with skeptics over whether the planet is warming or that human activity is responsible.

The pattern illustrates a growing disconnect between the debate still raging in politics and the reality on the ground. In many city planning departments, it has become like Voldemort, the arch-villain of the Harry Potter stories: It's the issue that cannot be named.

"The messaging needs to be more on being prepared and knowing we're tending to have more extreme events," said Graham Brannin, planning director in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Sen. James Inhofe — a global warming denier and author of a book labeling it "The Greatest Hoax" — once served as mayor. "The reasoning behind it doesn't matter; let's just get ready."

To be sure, flood control projects and other so-called resiliency measures were taking place long before anyone spoke of planetary warming. But the climate threat has added urgency and spurred creative new proposals, including ones to help people escape searing temperatures or to protect coastlines from surging tides, like artificial reefs. It's also generated new sources of government funding.

In Tulsa, the city has been buying out homeowners and limiting development near the Arkansas River to help prevent flooding from severe storms. Although two lakes provide ample drinking water, Brannin is beginning to push for conservation with future droughts in mind. A nonprofit, Tulsa Partners Inc., is advocating "green infrastructure" such as permeable pavement to soak up storm runoff.

They emphasize disaster preparedness, saying little or nothing about climate change.

Leaders in Grand Haven, a town of 10,600 in predominantly Republican western Michigan, will meet this fall with design consultants to explore such possibilities as "cooling stations" for low-income people during future heat waves, or development restrictions to prevent storm erosion of the Lake Michigan waterfront.

City Manager Pat McGinnis isn't calling it a climate change initiative.

"I wouldn't use those words,'" McGinnis said he told the consultants. "Those are a potential flash point."

Grand Haven's mayor, Geri McCaleb, is among the skeptics who consider warming merely part of nature's historical cycle. Yet she's on board with ideas for dealing with storms.

"History will bear out who has the right answers" about climate change, McCaleb said.

Joe Vandermeulin, whose organization runs the Grand Haven program and others, is accustomed to walking the language tightrope.

"The term 'global warming' seems to be thoroughly misunderstood, so we don't use it much," Vandermeulin said, even though a primary goal is helping communities prepare for ... global warming.

During a climate conference this summer that drew about 175 community leaders, government officials and scientists, mostly from the Great Lakes area, organizers even distributed a pamphlet with tips for discussing the subject — or sidestepping it. For example, avoid hyperbolic "climageddon" warnings about impending catastrophe, it advises.

"It's really unfortunate that the political climate has poisoned the way we have to talk about these things," said Don Scavia, a University of Michigan environmental scientist and an organizer of the Ann Arbor session.

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Peter Nierengarten, the city's "sustainability and resilience director," encounters a range of opinion about his efforts to make houses more energy and water efficient. A conspiracy theorist website headlined "The 'Sustainable' Vampire Attacks!" accuses him of colluding with a supposed United Nations-inspired plot to revoke individual rights.

But Nierengarten and allies successfully lobbied the GOP-led state legislature to allow communities to issue tax-exempt bonds for efficiency projects.

"It was all about the economic health of businesses across the state and being more competitive," he said. "Not global warming."

The subject is especially touchy in coastal areas, where developers worry that projections of rising sea levels will boost insurance costs and scare off real estate buyers. In rural Hyde County, N.C., planning director Kris Noble just talks about flooding, which people understand.

"We can argue about climate change all day long, is it happening or is it not, but either way, we've always flooded and we're always going to flood," she said.