CC MEETING: May 21, 2013
DATE: May 15, 2013
TO: Leonard Martin, City Manager
FROM: Marc Guy, Assistant City Manager; Ravi Shah, Director of Development Services
Title
Consider A Resolution Establishing Neighborhood Empowerment Zones.
Body
BACKGROUND:
Staff and the Re-Development Sub-Committee have explored concepts for creating an incentive package for repair, rehabilitation and re-development in the city's older neighborhoods. After reviewing programs from other cities staff concluded that the best model for Carrollton would be the Neighborhood Empowerment Zone concept, which would waive all construction fees, including building permit fees, impact fees, platting fees, and project permit fees (fences, electrical, plumbing, etc.), within the Zones, for both commercial and residential properties. Fees would be waived for all projects, including new development, and renovation, rehabilitation or repair of existing properties. This program would be easy to administer, requires no additional staffing, and the incentives would be focused on aging areas of the community.
Staff recommends creating several Neighborhood Empowerment Zones, whose boundaries would coincide with the NOTICE neighborhoods. These areas are already recognized as neighborhoods at the greatest risk of distress due to housing conditions, age and condition of infrastructure, etc., which puts them at or near a "tipping point." Since many of these neighborhoods are contiguous, they have been grouped to create larger Empowerment Zones, which include some commercial and retail properties.
This concept would offer another level of support to property owners and neighborhoods in concert with the infrastructure refreshment and targeted code enforcement efforts that are already part of each NOTICE initiative.
This item was presented as a worksession to the full Council at the May 7th, 2013 meeting.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
Approval of the resolution as proposed wil...
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