ED & Planning Committee
Meeting Summary for December 3, 2008
Page 1
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COMMITTEE AGENDA TOPICS
I.
Subject:
Action:
Belmont Retail
Committee Review and recommendation on next steps on Belmont
Retail Project
II.
Subject:
Update on Independence Boulevard Phase II Study – Land Use
and Transportation Plan
Present concepts for public, private and public/private partnership
streets as part of the Independence Boulevard Area Plan
Action:
III.
Subject:
Action:
Independence Boulevard Redevelopment
Staff will provide update on framework for Economic Development
grant to assist redevelopment of Independence Boulevard site for WalMart.
IV.
Subject:
Action:
FY2010/2011 Focus Area Plan
Committee review and recommendation of final draft of ED Focus Area
Plan
V.
Subject:
Next Meeting Date
The next meeting is scheduled for December 17, 2008 at 3:30 p.m.
COMMITTEE INFORMATION
Present:
Time:
Council members John Lassiter, Nancy Carter, Anthony Foxx, and Patsy Kinsey
and James Mitchell
12:00 noon – 1:45 p.m.
ATTACHMENTS
1.
2.
3.
PowerPoint Presentation – Belmont Retail
PowerPoint Presentation – Independence Boulevard Area Plan
PowerPoint Presentation – Independence Boulevard Redevelopment
DISCUSSION HIGHLIGHTS
I.
Subject: Belmont Retail
Tom Flynn: We have before you a recommendation on this project and we want to walk
you through how we got to that recommendation and see if the Committee wants to take
the recommendation to the City Council on this project. Basically our recommendation is
not to proceed on the development of the retail center at the corner of Parkwood and
Pegram.
Mr. Flynn used a PowerPoint for his presentation to the Committee
AC Shull: We started looking at this project we were thinking about 26,000 square feet
which would be all the parcels indicated. The problem we have had with the property
owners, they either didn’t want to sell to us and we kept going back to them and we got
mixed feeling about whether they wanted to sell or not. Some of them wanted to be
partners in a development, but all of them wanted more than our Real Estate Division
appraised the property for. That was the deal killer that raised the price of the project to
require the City to put $2 million in. Some of the property owners never would negotiate
with us in good faith. They changed the price, talked about trading property with us and
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we kept going back to see if we could make any kind of a legitimate deal within the
appraised price range value and we never could. We never did get land control or any
commitment in writing from two of the property owners that owned three of the parcels.
The 13,000 square feet does not generate enough revenue to operate a small shopping
center for neighborhood services. The return on investment is too low, even with $2
million going in, the return is really too low to be a feasible financial project. Mr. Shull
Continued the presentation with slides on Page 3
Questions/Answers/Comments
Lassiter:
Is Mr. Jenkins a member of the Belmont CDC Board?
Shull:
No, he is not on the CDC Board.
Continued the presentation with slides on Page 4
Lassiter:
Sweeney:
I think this is a bad business deal. I know Bob Sweeney has spent a lot of
time trying to make this work and I want to thank him for his hard work. Is
there anything you want to add, based upon the analysis AC has gone through
that might help us in our deliberation?
I think of the things that are clear, the site, because it is so small doesn’t
really cover the fixed costs. If you have a center like City West Commons
where you can spread it over three times, the land costs and the infrastructure
costs and financing costs price per foot need to work and I think that is
probably the biggest point. It is tough to get someone to bid competitively on
something this small. I think there is a chance with the market that we could
get better pricing than we had even 30 days ago, but it still wouldn’t make a
difference. The overall return on this without any grant is only 1.88%.
Usually if the conventional market yields in the 12% range and we can get up
to 6% so we are 200 basis points below conventional developers, we can still
make it work. If it is 400 basis points below, it is just too much. As far as the
City giving CMDC or the neighborhood money, I think we can do a better job
of leveraging your dollars in a bigger project. Our project at Greenway
Business Center is a good example where we have $950,000 the City put in,
but we will have over 200 jobs, 32 acres with 14 new businesses and it really
had a great impact on that neighborhood. The other problem you have here is
that this deal might become obsolete in two years. There are better sites, and
for example, we can put in a small pharmacy, but if CVS or a Walgreens
moved into the neighborhood, they would be out of business.
Continued the presentation with Other Options on Page 6
Foxx:
Flynn:
Shull:
I would like to ask a couple questions about what other options we might
consider.
We did work with Belmont CDC and they are a big part in helping us
understand the community’s action to the markets; however, we didn’t see it
as being able to bring resources to the table for this project at this time.
The Belmont CDC came to Council a couple of times when we were looking at
previous proposals. They are very much involved with building out a goal of
ten single family houses being owned by Neighborhood Development as part
of the capital program there. I think they are finally making some progress
with three occupied. That plan actually talks about being a partner in the deal.
The City West and Reid Park Associates were partners with the CMDC in that
project so it makes a pretty good deal for a non-profit community group to
take part in a development like this. They were not interested in pursuing that
because they had so much … make-up in developing single family homes. The
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Foxx:
Sweeney:
Foxx:
Sweeney:
Carter:
Flynn:
Lassiter:
Kinsey:
St. Paul Church, I really didn’t engage in conversation with them because I
knew about their master plan and working with Neighboring Concepts to
develop that so I really did not associate with them at all.
When I say partner with them and their resources, what it sounds like to me is
that while they may not be partners in the neighborhood, they do bring
resources in for tax leverage if they help us move some of these properties.
Just because they don’t have cash doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t … value
of contribution. The second question I had, it looks like we are trying to buy
the property. Is there some other creative way we can look at partnering with
the different owners to allow them to take some ownership in the property,
but help us …?
Everybody always ask us that and so even with the grant and even if you put
in the $2 million, the return is only 4% so our debt would actually be higher
than the return. What happens we lose equity in land on everyone of these
deals we do so to have a kind of joint venture/partner land owner, they all
want to do it, but they don’t want to figure out what the numbers are and no
one wants accept the 4% return, or what the real return is 1.88%. It doesn’t
work for them usually in a return on their investment. They’ve got a property
that is worth $100,000, sometimes the rent is 12% or 10% return, but if you
have to go down to 4%, even if you gave them some kind of preferred
increased return, economically the joint venture thing doesn’t work well.
The bottom line is, even if we got this property … and even if the more
favorable construction environment, we face … marginal if any return on
investment.
Yes, and mostly as a result of the size of the site and the … because we don’t
Walgreens. We would have a pharmacy that gives no credit and we would
have a barber shop with no credit and we would have a dollar store that is
paying in the $6.00 to $8.00 range.
The proposal, does it include acting on the options and acquiring the land?
No, the option expires December 31st.
We have a recommendation from staff to not proceed on the acquisition and
development which would in fact allow the existing options to expire.
I am very really disappointed about this, but I cannot support it if it is not
economically feasible and I don’t believe it is. I wish it was.
VOTE:
Carter made a motion to accept staff’s recommendation not to proceed on land
acquisition and development of retail at Parkwood & Pegram, but continue to
explore ways to identify a stimulus commercial project working with
alternative structures in Belmont. Mr. Mitchell seconded the motion. The
vote was unanimous.
Foxx:
I would not want us to completely forget the idea of some kind of stimulus
project for this neighborhood. I would like to maybe tie that into the motion
that we ask the staff to explore ways to create a stimulus project.
Carter seconded the amendment to the motion
Lassiter:
We have worked pretty and I appreciate our partners who have worked pretty
hard. AC your efforts have been tremendous and I know you have spent a lot
of time trying to make this thing work. At the end of the day, it is a bad
business deal for us to partner with CMDC or anybody else to try to make this
site work and I think it is a combination of scale. It’s a combination of location
and it a combination of the neighborhood recognizing that the long-term vision
for this is beyond what we can currently do. I think that is the point Mr. Foxx
made that we are not going to abandon issues within the Belmont community,
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but we need to probably look a little bit further down stream, based upon the
benefits of what is coming from the rest of the public investment within the
community and the likely uses of these sites that currently don’t fit that vision
and find ways to encourage that through the tools that we might have,
whether it is some kind of partnership or whether it is some kind of zoning and
planning issue. We need to keep looking at it because there are issues
relative to certain key intersections and places in the neighborhood that do
affect the ability for the kind of positive growth we want to see happen or
block because of what happens because of uses that are there currently. I
think the comments you received from the community reflect that and I will
support the motion.
The vote was taken on the motion and it was recorded as unanimous
Lassiter:
Foxx:
Flynn:
Kinsey:
Kimble:
Flynn:
I thank you all for the hard work. This has been a real difficult project to try
to do and I think all of us had hoped it would work so we have to accept the
reality where it is. Bob thank you and AC for all the work you have done trying
to fit the pieces together.
I really appreciate that the staff has reached out to the community and
explained the basis of this decision directly to them and not have it come from
another source.
A C is going to do that this afternoon. We wanted to make sure that we got it
to you first, but we have some calls to make.
Is one of those Dianne English?
Absolutely.
Since the option does expire at the end of December, we have saved a place
on Council’s agenda on Monday for this item and we have sent out the Council
Action in Manager’s packet on Friday.
II. Subject:
Update on Independence Boulevard Phase II Study – Land Use and
Transportation Plan.
Tom Warshauer: We had a great team of people working on this. We last brought this to you
on November 5 to take a look at where we were.
Mr. Warshauer used a PowerPoint for his presentation to the Committee
Questions/Answers/Comments
Lassiter:
The access at Albemarle is not limited; it is limited only for a little piece of
that. Is the expectation from a land use standpoint that everything kind of
within that Rooms-to-Go block redevelops in a different way or is it still
expected to have frontage up against Independence as opposed to more
neighborhood oriented or more oriented to Albemarle Road?
Warshauer:
We had taken a look at greater intensity back in here, but we have a church
and cemetery and there is not great access along this area. We may be able to
get a median opening, but there is not great access in here. We have been
proposing that we keep this as a neighborhood and that the neighborhood be
stabilized, but we think there are some opportunities in there to see some
different kind of development. It could be more mixed use or chooses slightly
more intense especially to get to the transit station. Being able to pull off to
these small lots and to get into them is quite difficult and being able to get
back into traffic is difficult. When we talked to Rooms-to-Go, they said people
pull out of Rooms-to-Go, then they go back to the car repair and then exit
onto Albemarle Road. You can pull off a little bit more comfortably than
pulling back into traffic.
Lassiter:
It just strikes me that with what Wal-Mart is trying to do and then the
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Warshauer:
Flynn:
Lassiter:
Carter:
Warshauer:
Carter:
remaining redevelopment of the Coliseum Center, of coming more scale to it,
that the logic would be that it is less frontage driven and more entering into a
combination with some amount of residential, but it is primarily an office/retail
component. The logic would be that it could be a similar kind of use because it
is kind of the connection of what is in essence is Pierson extended and
Albemarle extended.
Right, particularly when you are down in here, we are looking at bigger format
retail. What we have to do is be able to take advantage of Pierson Drive and
Independence.
And the much deeper lots that you’ve got here than you do up here.
My sense is that as you move around the corner you get the depth as you
move into some of those vacant parcels.
The idea of breaking the median on Albemarle is very attractive and anything
we can do to facilitate that I would be its best advocate.
We are very excited that we have been making some progress with NCDOT
and they are looking at a median break to enable people to make the u-turn
on the inbound side of Albemarle before you get to the freeway.
That does create some connectivity and patterns across the way all the way to
Idlewild, but the important issue is to keep those communities linked and the
perception linkage as well as nurturing the decent businesses that have
located there recently and not to destroy what is a positive impetus. In
looking at some very intense apartment dwellings in that area, I would
question your intensity before those are upgraded. The key here is to keep
healthy communities and we talked about the use of the $10 million for the
housing funds and perhaps retrofitting some of our apartment dwellings,
taking a blight and moving it to an asset. This could be an offering in that
area because we have a hot spot. Addressing that hot spot before we go with
any greater intensity would be a key issue for me.
Continued presentation with slides on Page 7
Lassiter:
Warshauer:
Lassiter:
Warshauer:
Lassiter:
Warshauer:
Carter:
You are talking about doing a fly over of Farmingdale and Glendora?
Correct.
Primarily just connecting residential streets?
Right. What would happen here would be that it would provide some relief for
people as opposed to having everyone go over to the major thoroughfares on
each side. They would be able to get across without jamming up those other
major thoroughfares and still provide some outlets for people to get across
and to get around without having to use … without a lot of stop lights. We
thought there is pretty substantial population on each side and this might be a
good way of relieving some of the congestion.
I just think the cost of that would be overwhelming. I don’t see how you are
ever going to justify that kind of expense, basically connecting two residential
neighborhoods when you’ve got significant access just below at Sharon Amity
and significant access just above it at Independence. What you are doing in
terms of creating kind of a strange impact robbing those ramps down into
residential streets.
That is why we are making sure we are looking at it both ways.
I really encourage that later proposal for leaving those … because you have
congestion over on Idlewild, the entering into the feed from your eastern side.
Both of those streets highly impacted on the residents that are already
suffering from traffic and we have no access from 4:00 to 6:00 turns into that
neighborhood already. If you have that major connection between Monroe
and Idlewild you are going to be hearing from those neighbors. I can predict
that very vocally and very negative form.
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Warshauer:
Lassiter:
We are hearing you.
You might just use your energy on other things that are more likely to happen.
Carter:
It would have to be significant benefits to the neighborhood to develop that. If
there is a location around that Lexus at Independence then perhaps they could
support it because they could access those services. Without that service it
really does not make sense.
Continued presentation with the last slide on Page 7
Carter:
Warshauer:
Carter:
Warshauer:
Carter:
Warshauer:
Carter:
Warshauer:
Where is the stop light that you have on Conference Drive?
We have to make sure that over time we could get a stop light in this location.
That is at the Library, correct?
Yes, at the Library.
And have a cut-through street beside the Library?
It would come through and would connect over here to facilitate a lot of
development in this area.
So you are taking out the EMS Station?
This road actually comes in through here and over time we believe that we
need to have a road network that connects there and get people in through it.
The Library would stay and the other buildings really don’t have a particularly
long shelf life in this area.
Continued his presentation with slides on Page 8
Lassiter:
Warshauer:
Carter:
Kinsey:
Warshauer:
Lassiter:
Flynn:
The community review is community meetings with a formal notice to the
neighborhood leaders? A number of these issues, when they come up and this
last whole piece of Wallace Road and Village Lake, I still remember some of
the issues that came to Council when we talked about just creating a driveway cut out of Daniel Levine’s property and what that caused. Now you are
talking about a full grid that will be coming off these corridors back into the
neighborhoods that sometimes feel they’re only protection from what is going
on is the fact that you can’t get in and out of them. We have to be real careful
about how we come up with a land use plan that matches up with transition to
the neighborhood and that then justifies the reason that you create a more
connecting grid. The sheer connectivity in and of itself may threaten the
vitality of some of these neighborhoods.
We do have a Citizen’s Advisory Group and we will be meeting with them and
then a public meeting as well.
I would be interested in seeing our Police Department involved as we discuss
these. I know that is short-term, but as we move through these projects, I
think talking with them about the existing plans or existing situations there
and seeing how these can improve those situations. I think what you are
doing will in essence improve, but to move through this and have the advice
and the consultation of our Police would be helpful.
Tom, could I get a list of the Advisory Committee? The reason I am asking is
I’m getting a lot of questions. I want to make sure that somebody in that
neighborhood is involved so they will know exactly what is going on because
they don’t seem to take my word for it.
We can definitely do that.
We will have this back next month some time?
Yes.
III.
Subject:
Independence Boulevard Redevelopment
Tom Flynn: This is just an update and we are not asking for any action from the Committee on
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this at this time. We just want to update you about the progress we’ve made with the parties
about the street issue. This is the Wal-Mart site at Amity Gardens.
Mr. Flynn used a PowerPoint for his presentation to the Committee
Questions/Answers and Comments
Carter:
This is very attractive, but my concern is the connection with the Coliseum
Shopping Center.
Does that exist, will it exist or will it exist when
redevelopment occurs?
Flynn:
I think at the last meeting we were very clear that we thought that after this
all happens we should put a little barricade there to prevent people from
cutting through there. We will look at that and remove that barricade once
you get this redevelopment here. That was your direction from last time.
Continued presentation with slides on Page 3-6
Carter:
Flynn:
Carter:
Flynn:
Carter:
Lassiter:
Flynn:
Carter:
Flynn:
Carter:
Lassiter:
Flynn:
Carter:
Could you flip back to the diagram that includes the sidewalk? I am interested
to see if that can tie into the sidewalk on Independence itself.
Sidewalk on Independence – actually in conversations with CDOT and Planning
our thought is that this sidewalk would replace that sidewalk. Walking along
Independence Boulevard is not a good environment so that is why we think
this connection would be new down to a sidewalk here which would actually
bring you down to Pierson which would be underneath. The sidewalk here just
sort of drops you off and goes no where because it doesn’t cross over.
There is a tremendous elevation as you go further east so is there anyway to
access a walking area on Independence on the other side? That is what my
concern is.
Underneath, once you go underneath?
No, going east.
How do you get from the Olive Garden to the Wal-Mart?
I do not have an answer for that, but we will look at that.
Let’s see if we can facilitate that because there is no need to not create a
walkable environment there.
I’m not sure what is out there to get up there with.
That would be a concern of my and also seeing the tie-in for the west as well,
make sure that if that road debouches into Independence, then continue it
down to the west as well.
You have a cross section coming into the Wal-Mart site that will have certain
amount of planting, landscaping, etc. As you come now across Albemarle
Road to loop around it will go to a very stark cross section with concrete
median, sidewalks virtually right on Albemarle Road. Can we look at how we
make our improved property a good neighbor based on consistency so that as
you come out of this site it creates a comparable impression as you move
either direction? My sense is that as we kind of play with that from a land use
planting standpoint and trying to encourage some minimal pedestrian activity,
but certainly there is an impressionable impact by how we enter into that part
of the City. We are going to have a lot of improvement here and it is going to
create a different tone to the degree to which we can try to pick some of that
up I think it could make a lot of difference in the ultimate redevelopment as
you move out Albemarle Road.
We will have that to show you what the rezoning requires. There are some
notes on the rezoning that required … of that and other places around
Charlotte.
There are two balancing brick walls on either side of Independence that were
placed there for the improvement of that intersection. It might be interesting
to echo that, but NCDOT has promised us some trees, particularly on the
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Flynn:
Carter:
Lassiter:
Flynn:
Carter:
Flynn:
Campbell:
Carter:
south side of Independence during this redevelopment of this particular
segment of Independence. I would like to hold them to that promise. It has
been produced.
Basically it is in front of the Coliseum Shopping Center if I am not mistaken.
So let’s see what we can do with our favorite train.
What is the time table that we will be making a recommendation back to
Council?
I would be looking to have that for you either at your next meeting in
December or your first meeting in January for a decision by the Council at the
end of January.
Since the decision making of Wal-Mart and the other
members for a go at the end of February.
This plan is agreeable both to the person who had the option on the land as
well as to the Wal-Mart, correct?
Planning is still working with Wal-Mart on other issues surrounding the
rezoning.
We are still working on the building elevations and we have to go … of things.
Staff has very little authority to change the site plan. That is done
administratively by you all in a public hearing and we are trying to get them to
… the intent and not necessarily exactly what was approved, but we still feel
that it is important because of the public input process that took place
regarding the design of Wal-Mart that we get closer to the spirit and intent.
If you need any support, please notify us and I think you will have full Council
supporting that effort.
IV.
FY2010/2011 Focus Area Plan
John Lassiter, Chair: The last item on our agenda is to review and based upon the
Committee’s readiness; adopt recommendations for our Focus Area Plan for Economic
Development. What staff did, based upon our last conversation, was to take our suggestions,
roll them back into what are now six categories and put measurements where we felt there
wasn’t enough metrics to determine whether it matched with what we are trying to do. We
don’t have to adopt this today and can spend little more time with it, but we need to get to
Council in advance of our Retreat. I want to take enough time to go through this and maybe
the thing to do today is let either Tom or Ron walk through what we have done here and then
see if there are any additional suggestions or comments or concerns and see where we are.
Ron Kimble: Tom and I will tag team on this. First and foremost, we have taken a shot of
rewriting the front cover page which you have not seen before because this is your first
chance at looking at the narrative. We took our best shot at trying to incorporate many of the
thoughts that you had expressed during the last couple of meetings. You may not have to
review that at this moment, but we certainly want to take a look at it and make any
observations or improvements between now and December 17th. Randy, are we okay with
adoption on December 17th by this Committee?
As we walk through the different Focus Area Initiatives, we tried to take your thoughts and
your direction from the last meeting. We hope we got it as close as we could, but we may not
have that for you to decide today. We took a look at promoting the healthy business climate
by expansion and retention of jobs and we tried then to package all the different elements that
you put on the board that represented expansion or retention of jobs and focus them into the
measures that are shown and there are three of them: Job growth of the new sectors, which is
really renewable energy, green industry, health care, emerging industries and high
growth/high tech and tried to put a measurement there that we had discussed last time. We
wanted to maintain our retention emphasis and efforts so the second measure relates to
making sure that we continue BusinessFirst in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce
and talk about the target and making sure that we are not only calling on businesses, but I
think the comment from all of you last time was making sure that we are servicing those
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businesses, not just calling on them. We’ve added servicing to that notation. We worked
some on hospitality tax revenue and room nights. There is a question mark by increase in all
hospitality tax revenue. I think we are settling on 3%.
Questions/Answers/Comments
Flynn:
That is something we want to … the Committee in light of the presentation the
Council will see on Monday.
Kimble:
The current quarter that just ended this year compared to last we were about
8% negative growth in hospitality and tourism taxes related to hotel/motel.
On food and beverage, we are still up 1% this past quarter to a quarter a year
ago. We’ve never been negative before on food and beverage taxes. We
hope even in this environment we don’t go negative on food and beverage, so
in talking with the hospitality and tourism folks 3% increase in all hospitality
tax revenue is something that I would consider probably a stretch target or
stretch goal in maintaining at least 3%.
Lassiter:
We don’t have a couple of big events like the ACC Tournament and others that
were on our balance sheet for last year.
Kimble:
Right. The ACC Football Championship doesn’t occur until December 2010 and
2011 so it is still another year out beyond this year.
Lassiter:
We may get North Carolina Tar Heels playing football here.
Kimble:
That would be nice and it would give us a little boost on food and beverage,
but you know they don’t spend the night so the hotel/motel tax doesn’t boost.
Lassiter:
The will stay at my house.
Kimble:
That is how we tried to package all the thoughts that you gave us at the last
meeting into one initiative known as grow jobs and retain jobs.
Flynn:
I want to point out one other thing because there was some conversation
around the number of business visits. The last time under FY08, I think we
reported 198. That 198 number was just a number that the City staff
completed. The 416 number is the combined City and Chamber effort and
that is what really should have been related to the 400. My apologies for that
misinformation.
Foxx:
When we had that horrible week when we found out that Wachovia was … I
was not happy with the level of information that I got. I received questions
from the public about it, but I didn’t have anything to go on and I know from
some extent no one did, and there was a lot of bustling around to try to figure
out what was going on. What I asked about last time was having something
that reflected our taking some roles and trying to do more upfront with some
of the larger cooperation job retention, headquarter retention or whatever you
want to call it outside the BusinessFirst category. I think there is a role we
could have better information for job …
Kimble:
Would that be kind of a process improvement rather than something that we
actually put on the Focus Area Initiatives and something that we find a way to
communicate stronger, better, earlier, faster?
Foxx:
If the goal is to reflect what I think are some of the things that we want for
this community, I would think retaining our larger headquarters and retaining
as many jobs as we can … I just want that thought captioned somewhere, if
not here, some other place so you can take that feedback.
Kimble:
It is captured as of this moment. I don’t know if we can reflect it here, but we
can reflect it I think in process.
Kimble:
Focus Initiative 2 is concentrating, emphasizing on small businesses, making
sure that we are growing the number of small businesses that are recognized
and certified. Then the procurement and the ability of the City to utilize those
small businesses and procurement activities. Informal contracting dollars
awarded to SBE, you see the performance in the two prior years we had a
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conversation last time about boosting it to at least 12% and that is what we
have done, based on your direction. There is a lot rolled into this one. It is a
short statement, but a very powerful statement I think about our commitment
to SBEs.
Lassiter:
Flynn:
Kimble:
Lassiter:
Carter:
Kimble:
Lassiter:
Kimble:
Flynn:
Kimble:
Workforce Development – you had some comments last time about making
sure that we not only talked about contact with the youth at JobLink Centers,
but also the placement of a certain number of youth so we tried to reflect that
in the target and the measure. We left it open about promoting the strategy
and developing partnerships to retrain displaced workers. We need a little bit
more time I think to figure out what kind of target we would want to place on
that and it is a new measure from this year to next year.
One thing we might want to do is let’s inventory our job training and retraining
function. It tends to operate a little bit outside of any policy makers view and
we get funding at the State and Federal level for this particular purpose. My
sense is that we are operating it kind of the same way we have been operating
it for at least a decade. It might be good to pull that program back up on the
radar screen, look at it, see what it is doing, see how it operates, what its
partnerships are and see if it meets our current …
We have already met with the Chairman of the Workforce Development Board
and the Executive Director of the Workforce Development Board around this
very target.
Is that something we could formulate the target around?
My sense is that you can at least have a measure that talks about a review
and retooling of our programmatic element and that may then trigger some
things you can measure about how you do that. We’ve got to start a review
first and it is going to be more critical over the next six to nine months as we
have an increased number of displaced folks in the community. Our
unemployment numbers are going to rise over the next six months from 7%
now and we are probably going to hit 8% or 9% before we are done. These
are generally educated workers.
Make sure that we incorporate the online capacity. I know that is a huge
umbrella, to see if that would make a stab at understanding what is available
online. I think having that knowledge ourselves; we then can broadcast it into
the community.
Those two comments and any others give us a way to frame an appropriate
target.
To that point, in my other life, we can always tell when we get an application
that came through the Employment Security Commission and other kinds of
government-driven jobs because they tend to be faxed. That is an example of
where there is not a connecting point between the way the market is working
and what access points people are given.
Okay, that helps.
That does help a lot.
Initiative 4 was the continued focus and concentration of Business Corridors
Revitalization and Redevelopment. I think your instructions last time were to
make sure that we include Eastland Mall and we included reference to each of
the five business corridors that were identified in our strategic plan. We left in
Conduct Urban Market Studies and Recruitment for Corridors. We were unsure
as there was some feeling yes and some feeling no. It is in for now and I
think it relates to all five corridors. We are in fact doing that through our
Business Corridor efforts and our people are assigned that responsibility in
concert with Neighborhood Development. We tried to capture and reflect what
we thought we heard from the majority of you.
ED & Planning Committee
Meeting Summary for December 3, 2008
Page 11
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Kimble:
Initiative 5, Expand Tax Base and Revenues, this was continuing to monitor
the Building Permit value for infill redevelopment to stressed business districts
and transit station areas. We do have sub-components in each one of these
that add back into this total. We thought it was maybe too cumbersome to
put those all on this page, but we can give you those sub-category numbers so
that you will know that we are tracking it in a lot of different functional
categories. It is just not one category, but a number of categories. I think
the instruction last time was try and work the capital projects resulting from
area plans back into this one because it does relate toward the corridor
improvements and it related there better than any place else, rather than as a
separate free standing focus area initiative. We tried to combine that with
what we heard last time.
Kimble:
Initiative 6, we heard Business Facilitation/Business Process Improvements
and kind of re-titled it. We have three measures under it and I think the first
and third are fairly meaningful. One of the questions would be do we need to
retain the second one, which was the permitting report initiative. We clearly
want to continue to track how well or not so well we are doing on plan reviews
and making sure that we get 90% or 95% of our reviews in land development
done in less than, or equal to 2½ reviews. We heard last time that measure
#3, maybe we should be conducting a competitive analysis, looking and
comparing ourselves to other cities in the State and other cities around the
country, making sure that we are doing everything that we can in this
downturn environment to be encouraging development and redevelopment
rather than discouraging. It is going to be a tough time for the development
world, a tough time for the private sector and it will be a tough time also for
the public sector, but we’ve got to maybe alter our thinking a little bit and be
more sympathetic to the needs of the community at large without sacrificing
quality development that we all know we want to have on the ground. We
haven’t quite figured out how we would do that competitive analysis, but I
think it was a direction that we heard from the majority of the Committee
members last time, so we have tried to reflect that. I think one question is, do
you want to leave the second measure and target in or drop it out?
This 3rd measure, I want to make sure we are clear on what we are doing, and
this is the context in which I say that. Really, I think everybody on this
Committee and everybody on Council wants the process. I don’t think it is …
for us to take a look at our regulatory system to understand what economic
impacts there are. I think in most cases when we are approving regulations,
we do take a look at that and it is important to take a look at it because …
What I don’t want to see us do is work across … where you’ve got regulations
that are in place on one hand and we develop a different style in which we
look at those regulations that are measured in a way that don’t take into
account other quality of life issues and community issues that may have value
that may not necessarily be quantifiable all the time. I worry that my framing
in the context of competitive management puts, unless you are really careful
about how you do it, it puts it in a framework that looks purely at the
economic cost benefit without taking into account … and community issues as
well. I don’t think the way that is written right there makes it clear to me
what we are doing. It looks to me like we might be reconsidering our
ordinance.
It wasn’t meant to be that way. It was meant, how can we as a staff do a
better job of speeding up the process of eliminating the conflict that you
sometimes find when you do a review where you can’t satisfy all of the
ordinance and regulatory requirements because some of them are mutually
exclusive on tight site development, and how can we develop a process that
Foxx:
Kimble:
ED & Planning Committee
Meeting Summary for December 3, 2008
Page 12
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Lassiter:
Kimble:
Foxx:
Kimble:
Lassiter:
Kimble:
Foxx:
expedites that resolution of the conflict that exists when that happen so that
we don’t stymie and stonewall the process of getting the plan review out as
quickly as possible. Maybe we said it a different way.
What I think this is, we’ve been able for sometime now to force private
investment to put ourselves in whatever position we’re trying to build on
because we can contract the market. That is not going to be the case. There
are very few deals, very little capital, very little credit so there are fewer deals
for new development, redevelopment all over the country. We need to go
back and look at how we put our ourselves in a position to attract that
investment and as we created systems, rules, processes that make us less
attractive than our competition that is not to say we are going to suddenly
rewrite the Urban Street Design Guide. What it says is, the way we apply
certain rules, the way we force things to happen and the timetable we put
people into, may create an environment that makes us a #2, #3 or #4 choice
in site. Two examples I’ve tried to help people through in the last year and a
half, one involved a driveway permit where there is going to be a review of an
existing shopping center project or a charter school for what is actually now
is… Episcopal School … what was going to be a commercial site and we said we
don’t need the commercial yet, but we can let you use it and rehab it when we
need it. It took an act of God to get the driveway permit cut to allow them to
… permit to get it done. It was ultimately done, but it took a lot of people to
do that and if somebody was coming in cold without any access to anybody,
who knows anybody they would have walked away. A similar problem up here
on the EpiCenter where there was a dispute between the owner of the
property and the developer or the condominium tower and as a consequence,
there is a piece of land that sits just below our sidewalk that is sitting undone
because it was the responsibility of the condo developer to build the … and
landscape it. We couldn’t come up with a system to allow the developer of the
land property to come and do something or to allow the permits to be pulled
to complete the rest of the project, holding up the revenue line. It got done,
but it required a lot of extra work to make that happen. A lot of that occurs
outside of our view and a lot of people just pack up, say I don’t want to mess
with that, I’ll go somewhere else. Those are the things I want to make sure
we are paying attention to. Are we in a position or are we organized in such a
way, and a lot of people in this room spend a lot of time trying to sort through
these things, but have we got a structure that says we can solve that problem
when it shows up and there is a mentality on the part the folks who are
engaged in this, willing to go ahead and try to make it happen as opposed to
trying to hold the rule up and say yes, follow this rule. It is a facilitator versus
a gate keeper philosophy and we’ve got to become customer-focused as
opposed to regulatory focused. That is how I see this discussion moving
forward.
I think it is important that we don’t leave here without figuring out. I’ve got a
suggestion – the measure would be conduct competitive advantage analysis of
permitting systems and processes and then the target would be elimination of
system barriers, conflict impediments in application of regulation.
Perfect.
I think the regulatory piece was what was giving a little bit of heartburn and I
think that eliminates it.
Of course there is not attitude in that list, but I think we might be able to
teach attitude.
Very good.
In the preamble to this strategic plan, … I just don’t think we ought to be …
and we ought to be clear that we are ready, willing and able to do whatever
we need to do to try to retain jobs here.
ED & Planning Committee
Meeting Summary for December 3, 2008
Page 13
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Lassiter:
Kimble:
Lassiter:
Kimble:
Lassiter:
V.
There ought to be a way to bring that from here into this first – it doesn’t need
to be a … day strategy, but it needs to be a goal of ours to continue to support
the large existing employer. I’m not sure how we measure that, but I think
perhaps it may be a communication question of how well we communicate
effectively as a Council.
We will take a stab at reflecting that and bring it back for the next time. I
think we may be in a position next time then for the approval on the 17th of
December.
What we will do then is everybody take a little time to read this preamble and
make sure they are comfortable with that language and then we will have the
final piece on the particular focus language and have that on our agenda for
approval on the 17th.
You are still ahead of everybody else.
That’s the plan.
Next Meeting
The next meeting date is scheduled for December 17, 2007 at 3:30 p.m.
The meeting adjourned at 1:45 p.m.