City Council Agenda and Packet 2019 04 02

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sense of place. If it is not profitable to build then it shouldn't be built. She is not in favor of awarding this and most appropriately should return funding to the Fire District. Councilmember Loo would like to have a discussion with the LRC to have some policies on how to use this. She stated we do have an agreement to return TIF money to the County. With regard to the Fire District, this will be a sprinkled building and probably not going to get a lot of response calls from Fire. To say the LRC doesn't care about the public is not fair, they listen to the business community, many of whom live and work here and they do listen to them. You can't compare TIF on commercial to residential. Finally, the whole idea sales tax revenue will go up forever is a fallacy. There is already a concern sales tax revenue is peaking, the prosperity of downtown will not last forever and we are in competition with communities across the metro area. Councilmember Maloney noted some policy discussions around this is needed. Motion: Councilmember Maloney moved to continue this to June 11 so to have time for policy discussion. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton seconded. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked City Manager Balser what the process will be to sort through these issues. City Manager Balser stated a joint meeting with LRC and Council is scheduled for May 14. Prior to that the LRC will draft policies and bring that to Council. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton suggested this should be an iterative process with more than one meeting. It may take more time to get it right. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton noted his vote at the LRC meeting was not against the application specifically but more on the process of sending this to the Council. We need to slow it down so both the LRC and Council can do some policy work. He suggested removing the application from the policy discussion. There is a disconnect between property values and the rents that downtown can command; we don't want to enact a policy that would exacerbate that. We do give rebates through the business assistance program; it's not like we don't provide rebates to businesses. It is the first time we have considered property tax increment. We need a clear policy on how we use this tool. Mayor Muckle stated this money can't be spent on something else because if this building isn't built there is no money. He noted the historic preservation tax can be used to incentivize new buildings building to a lower density than they might have, so this is a similar tool. We have done other incentives but not this exact kind, so we need a process on how use this. This is a tool; it is a matter of how do we want to use it. Vote: 6-1; Councilmember Stolzmann voting no. Item continued to June 11. Councilmember Loo and Councilmember Leh left the meeting at 9:30 pm.