Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Secretary, please call the role. Mrs. Moody, yes. Mr. Sassic, yes. Miss Yulinsky, yes. Chairman to Hunt, yes. Moving on to new business, Mr. Herbiel. Is he over there? I'm over here. Well, I thought you would introduce or we can let John introduce. [laughter]

Do Do you notice the Buckeyes how they have their own microphones

the best opportunities, ladies and gentlemen, this evening? We're going to give it to Aaron and he knows his team better than us and how they've been doing it. But Aaron, let me introduce you to our planning commission and our city attorneys with us this evening. We have one public uh tenant with us, a guest this evening. And on our table, we have our planner. Next to him is Carlton. [clears throat] He is um involved as our deputy BO. And then, as you know, Ian in economic development. And then I'm here hiding in the corner is our friend Kim. and uh she'll tell us what to do in the back of our ear. So Ian, Erin, if you'll go ahead and introduce everybody else and what role they're playing with you.

Yeah, sure. Uh Aaron Finley. Um I am leading the uh uh consultant team who's doing the economic development and placemaking strategy and master plan. And I am joined here today by my colleagues uh Aaron Brown who's been assisting and doing a lot of data and really just everything on the project. And I'm also joined by Mr. Brett Wilin uh who is the uh economic development vice president of economic development and something else at TPMA who's also serving as a strategic adviser on our project here. Uh, and I know this is Brett's first time presenting the group today, and he's excited uh to be here. And that's the team we've got uh on uh on the screen here today.

Thank you. I'll let you start the charge.

Okay. Well, thank you so much, uh, Planet Ocean. Good to see you all again. It's been just a little bit since we were there in person. Um and it's always a pleasure to present to you on these Thursday nights. Uh so we did want to come today and um give uh do a couple of things, accomplish a couple of things while we're here. One of them is we wanted to give uh an update on uh kind of a summary of our findings from the stakeholder workshops uh that you know we delivered in person when we were there. um just I guess a month or so ago now. And uh then uh again we're excited to have Brett join us who's going to give kind of an overview about small business ecosystems. Uh really largely going to be kind of informative. I'll let Brett introduce it here um you know in just a minute. Um and then if there's time we do still have a couple of transportation goals from the master plan. Uh if you'll recall, we were kind of revisiting those uh goals in in other planning documents kind of one by one. We do have uh the transportation goals section remaining, although I'm not sure we'll have the time here to get to it today, so we can always push it back if need be. Any questions about the agenda or anything else anybody would like to add?

Okay, I'll take silence as a note. And with that, I'll hand it over to Aaron Brown. Um and so before who jumped in here tonight. I do want to give Brett an introduction, a chance to introduce himself. Brett is the vice president of economic development and strategic planning at TPMA as Aaron said. Um so Brett,

yeah, thanks Aaron [clears throat] and Aaron. Um Brett Wileer, as mentioned, vice president of economic development, TPMA. Uh I'm leading the charge on the the economic development and place m making component of this project. Um I come to you from Erie, Pennsylvania. Um, so not too far away. Um, and have spent nearly 20 years as an economic development practitioner in my community, working in areas of business retention and expansion, uh, small business ecosystem development, business attraction, workforce development, capital finance strategy, and uh, whatever was asked of me uh, by my community. Uh I've since been uh at TPMA for going on five years now leading our economic development practice area and I typically serve as a strategic advisor or a project lead on economic development strategic planning efforts. Um and I've worked all over the country including um multiple projects in the state of Michigan. I'm currently engaged in a project with MEEDC, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and uh I'm also doing an economic development strategic plan in Huron County, Michigan, uh directly north of you all. So, um I'm going to talk a little bit about small business ecosystems with you all later. Um and I'm really excited to be here and appreciate the opportunity. So, thank you, Erin.

Thanks, Brett. Um and so we'll jump right in to um the stakeholder workshops. Um so I know a number of you were in attendance there. And so what we'll go over tonight is just a summary of what we heard from folks at those workshops. Um just one thing to note is that this is just one element of the stakeholder engagement process. So that includes, you know, surveys, open houses, and interviews. Um and then as we kind of continue to move through the project process, we'll also then join this kind of with the quantitative data um to get kind of a more holistic picture. Um and so one of those things, the survey is right in the field right now. The community survey is open through November 14th. Um so if you haven't had a chance to take that yet, we'd love it if you take a few moments to uh complete that. Um so with these workshop the way we have uh handled the data from these workshops um is that you know we had our uh attendees write down a whole bunch of things on sticky notes on pieces of paper on index cards. Um so we collected all of that information. Um what we then did is we coded those responses to identify kind of key themes. And so that's what we'll look at tonight. So the first session that we had was the economic development session. This was a two-hour session and this was a larger group. This was uh more than 25 folks were with us that day. And then this followed kind of our typical focus group sess structure which is this alone and together. And so we had folks work individually to brainstorm and then kind of prioritize as a group or as at their tables. Um and the activities that we went through were visioning strengths, opportunities, challenges, how might we and moving forward. and kind of those last two if you have some questions on we'll kind of talk about a bit more as we go through this. Um the information from this will inform both the economic

development um strategy as well as the master plan. So the first activity that we had folks do was um a visioning activity. And so we posed the question if the strategic plan is successful, what does the economy of East Point look like in 10 years. Um, some things we ask folks to think about are unique strengths or resources to build upon. Um, what will make East Point a great place to live and work and how will the economy benefit everyone? Um, and so what you see in this word cloud is kind of some most common themes that we heard. Um, not surprisingly, economic growth was a big one. You know, a thriving and vibrant business community. um a flourishing school district, a walkable community um and having more jobs locally. So having more East Points East Point residents live and work in the city. Um and then kind of similarly a desire to bring in young professionals and families. And so based off of what we heard, um this is just a draft vision statement. Again, this is just one component of the stakeholder engagement process. And so this is not something that will necessarily appear in the final report or anything like that, but just to reflect a bit of what we heard. Um, we wanted to put together something. And so what we came up with just based off of what we heard at that workshop is in 10 years, East Point will be a vibrant, walkable community with where strong schools, diverse housing, and thriving local businesses drive economic growth. By cultivating a connected and welcoming environment, we will attract and retain families, young professionals, and entrepreneurs, expanding job growth and enhancing quality of life for all. So the next activity we worked on was strengths. So first we asked participants to identify strengths individually and then as a group kind of prioritize them or identify top strengths. So what this first slide here is looking at the ones that were identified individually. And so um

things that are in darker color or larger text are um more common themes while lighter colors and smaller text uh indicate less common themes. This will be something again that you'll kind of see repeated throughout this uh PowerPoint. Um and so the top strength identified was local government and city staff. Um, and so just knowing that this was a curated list of participants, we do want to note that like we do these types of sessions all over and this isn't something we always here. Um, we do these sessions with kind of similar groups of attendees and again not something we always hear. So did want to include that. um the location both being in Metro Detroit and the gateway to Mcome County, you know, right at that intersection of Wayne and Mcome County which where we're connecting residents and workers and businesses to opportunities across the region. Um the business ecosystem was something we heard a lot about. So you know the chamber, the business resources, the small businesses, the anchor institutions. Um that was something that came up kind of again and again. um amenities including access to essentials such as food and transportation. Um as well as things like parks and the library were frequently mentioned as strengths that enhance the city. Um and then community members was rounding out those top five most common themes. Um so people mentioned that you know the residents they love the city and that's you know energy that can be harnessed to help move East Point forward. Um, other notable things that were common but not kind of in that top five were transport, the transportation network and traffic volume, city programs, public safety, strength of the local economy, and infrastructure. And so then this is um we had folks work in their tables to kind of prioritize those and raise the top strengths or the priority strengths. And so not surprisingly, kind of a lot of the same repeat things. local government and city staff, the business eos ecosystem,

location, public safety and transportation network were those top five. Um so then we had participate participants identify opportunities and so for the sake of time we didn't have them do that second step that prioritizing. Um and so we provided uh participants with the definition that an opportunity is something external to the city that can be leveraged as a catalyst for growth. Funding was the most common theme here and that included both kind of exploring opportunities to bring funding into the city such as federal grants or that Michigan neighborhoods fund as well as expending funds, you know, things like um infrastructure, home ownership incentives or in uh incentives for small businesses. um the transportation network, business ecosystem, commercial corridors, and location in the Metro Detroit area were also kind of among those uh opportunities. And I think they're all kind of related. Um thinking about, you know, traffic counts for businesses, regional connection, close to major employers, growth of commercial corridors, business resources. So then when we look at these challenges, we did kind of that same um structure as we did in looking at the strengths the working individually and then working as a group. Um the top themes there were the school system like community engagement, funding, household incrastructure and land availability. Um, and I thought it was interesting here that community engagement was noted as a challenge and the the residents of, you know, East Point were noted as a strength. And so I think that highlights the importance of of the community engagement, right? If our residents are such a strength, we definitely want them to be involved in these processes. And then again looking at these uh priority challenges, kind of the same

thing. School system, household income, community engagement, blight, infrastructure, land availability. One thing that we did see rise to the top here that wasn't necessarily kind of in those top group of common themes in the previous slide um was technology specifically talking about you know broadband access, computers, things like that. So then the next activity we had folks work on was um asking them to come up with how might we questions. And so this was based off of those challenges. And so it's kind of a way to start developing goals, right? So if one of your top challenge was um the was labor force participation, um an example could be how might we better support worker better support you know residents to increase the labor force participation rate. Um and these fell into a few main go main areas. Workforce, housing, local government and city staff. um development and then kind of a fifth miscellaneous which included the increasing computer and internet access as well as um attracting young families to the city. Um and then the final activity we did was moving forward and so that's based off of these how might we questions. So we had participants brainstorm uh strategies to answer that question through this activity. There were nearly a hundred different strategies generated. Um we're not going to go through them tonight uh because it would be so many. Um but as we continue to as we shape the strategies for the economic development plan and the master plan, we'll definitely be looking at kind of all of these. Um so that is a kind of a quick overview of what we heard in that first um session. Any questions based off of that? again taking silence as none.

Um then the second day what we worked on was the housing and land use stakeholder workshop. Again this was a two-hour session. This was a smaller group. Um and so there was a bit more of a informal structure here. Um definitely more reporting out conversational versus um in the first one know we had folks working in the groups. Definitely a lot more kind of structured and focused. Um and for this the activities we covered were visioning strengths and then the how might we. Um and then this will be um primarily in the master plan although definitely will still inform that economic development strategy as we all know you know economic development and housing are intrinsically linked. Um so this will also be at play there. So starting again with that visioning activity, the first uh the question we asked folks was if the housing and land use component to the master plan is successful, what does the city of East Point look like in 10 years? Some things for folks to think about are which populations do you hope to streamline housing for? What types of housing do we want to see? Where do we want to see housing? And what other land use changes do we want to see in East Point? What we heard as you can see in this word cloud is about you know the tenure ratio so interest in increasing the percentage of residents who are homeowners. Um a lot about mixed use and live work play communities. So that mix of residential and commercial developments. The diversity of housing types to provide options for residents kind of across both you know across all the different spectrums including um some support for innovative home types. affordability. Um, and similar to what we heard in the economic development workshop, we also heard about um, options for young professionals and families. And so, again, draft we drafted um, a vision statement just based off of what we heard. Um, again, this will change as we continue to

collect more information. U,, but what we came up with based off what we heard just at that session was East Point offers a thriving mix of highquality homes in walkable mixeduse neighborhoods. A diverse range of housing types support affordability and home ownership, attracting young professionals and families who choose to live, work, and invest in the community. East Point's housing reflects a balanced inclusive city where residents at every life stage can find a place to call home. Um, and so then we had had folks identify the strengths of the East Point for East Point right now. Um, housing character was a top strength. We heard a lot about East Point's brick single family homes. And so while this wasn't directly mentioned, I think you know, you can also draw a connection there to housing quality. Um the next thing we heard about a lot was zoning, including lot coverage, lot dimensions. Um you know, there are areas that allow greater density and that updated zoning ordinance which was, you know, just completed a couple years ago or in the last couple of years. um housing mix, you know, diversity of housing type and then also, you know, there's a spectrum from affordable housing to high-end housing, also starter homes. Um the location with the proximity to the commercial corridors, the gateway to Mcome County and the Metro Detroit, and then affordability, which makes home ownership attainable to a wider group of people. And so then we had participants work on identifying strategies to address five how how might we questions. Um and so these were address an aging housing stock, attract new residents, decrease housing vacancies, increase home ownership, and improve housing affordability. Um and so with address an aging housing stock, what we heard was um a home purchase or rehab education series for both residents and agents. um develop rehab and repair programming with local

funding or low interest loans. Offer tax incentives for renovations and repair. Um the city purchase and restoration of blighted and dilapidated build buildings and a vocational internship program. Um as far as attracting new residents. Um we, you know, there was talk about incentives about uh focusing on safety and the sense of community. Um using targeted uses of vacant properties. Some specifics mentioned were for teachers or um for people experiencing homelessness. Then a focus on attracting new businesses um offer more diverse housing types and then also on home buyer and down payment assistance programs. Um when it comes to decreased housing vacancies within the city, um county land bank came up as well as financial education and increased code enforcement. Um home ownership rates a lot of somewhat similar things to um the uh aging housing stock which is you know home ownership, financial aid, education, down payment assistance programs. Um then some about landlords with adopting rent to own models and then incentivizing homeowners who re rehab to rehab older homes. Um and then for housing affordability, what we heard was um you know about speculators um leveraging of a corporate fund or developing a rev revolving loan fund for affordable housing. And so um right now what we currently have ongoing as far as stakeholder engagement is that community survey. The posters from the open house are being circulated between city hall and the school and the schools. And then we also um will be scheduling interviews. So again, this is just one kind of aspect of the whole stakeholder engagement process. Um and so I guess I'll pause here for questions.

I have a question. The boards are at the schools. why a lot of the kids don't live in the community and we recognize that the school system has been the one of the bigger opportunities. So why are we why are we putting them in the schools for input? Why wouldn't we be putting these in churches, other facilities, libraries, senior centers, things like that? Chair, please.

Good evening. Good to be with you all again. It's been a while. Um, great question. Uh, so just to be clear, I can't tell you exactly how many hours I spent taking all of those boards and putting them up in city hall. It was uh it was a long endeavor. So once I got them up, originally the plan was to rotate a few boards between here and the library every week. Um and that would have taken a significant even more staff time. Um there are a couple reasons we decided to rotate them into the schools. And to be clear, the boards, as you can see, are not in the schools yet. they will be in the schools just for uh the final week of the survey process or the um or at least as as it stands now. Of course, the survey could be open longer, but um next week is supposed to be our final week. So, we did offer it to the schools for a variety of reasons. Number one, to get input from uh staff, parents, and students um especially those that you know can't interact. And um we have even offered to actually um not a lot of time but spend some time if the schools are interested going in and kind of helping them navigate and explain the sort of feedback that we're looking for and helping them actually contribute to what the future of the community could look like. Also, um, one thing that we learned during our last meeting with the consultants is there are some key demographics in our community that we have not so far reached either with the boards or with our survey and we believe not only by engaging with the schools but we also have a meeting set up uh with our chaplain. So, we are uh crossing our tees and dotting our eyes. So they will be in the schools but we are um as part of those interviews trying to reach uh some of those areas

where we have demographic gaps as it reflects to the demographics of the community. Has there thought about getting these at the chamber? Um as far as in the chamber office getting input from the chamber of commerce. Um so the chamber was present at the economic development focus group as you know. Um they as far as I know have been promoting the survey for us as well. Um I don't know that generally many people visit the chamber office on a regular basis and frankly there are uh 19 boards so you have to have a pretty significant amount of wall space. Um, and they, um, as you may also know, have their Deck of the Halls fundraiser going on right now as we speak. So, um, their office has been, uh, very busy, we'll say, the last couple of weeks. So, there really would not, even if we wanted to do it at the chamber office had been an opportunity. Now, if they were interested in hosting the boards in the future, that's something we could certainly talk to Linda and Sandra about, but no, that has not been something that we've explored as of yet. Thank you. Um and chair, I just wanted to share I know for [snorts] um the economic development um piece of the report out from the focus groups, one of the things that came up was internet and broadband access. Um and I wanted to pull it up on SMCOG's website because I hadn't looked at it myself. Um, but in East Point, the percentage of households with internet access alone is at 90.9%. And with broadband access, it drops a little bit, but it's still at 88.5%. Um, and so that does still leave um, you know, about 1,200 and 1500 residents, respectively, that do not have internet access. Unfortunately, with all of the

broadband money that was out there, we did explore and look into to see if the community would be eligible, but because our internet and broadband access rates are so high, we were not eligible for any of that. So, um certainly something that we could address, but also I would say something that in the grand scheme of things, we're doing pretty good on overall. I think it's

I think it's safe to say and I know a few of these residents that have absolutely no interest in being connected to the internet whatsoever. Um so I think we're doing just fine there. And um our library to their credit too, you know, they have their computers. The Clinton Mcome just up the road has great classes. So, um I think if there are any access issues or things where people need help, there are resources out there in our community and in surrounding communities on on that front as well.

I have some questions. Um for the vocational internship programs, what does that look like? because I love internship programs, but what does that look like for this? Anyone [laughter] going ber? I'll uh I'll turn it over to the consultants if they want to address that and then I'll I'll share a few thoughts on from the hats that I wear. Yeah, I'm I'm sorry. The question is, how do we set up vocational internships? Yes.

Well, what do they entail? What what is it involved in? What does the internship program look like? [snorts]

Well, I think um there's a a I guess it depends on the way there's a lot of different ways you can set up internship programs. I mean there are more formal apprenticeship programs that you can set up kind of through the state uh and with access to part of uh even federal registration for apprentichip programs. When it comes to other uh vocational internship programs, I really think that a lot of it just kind of and and Brett, you can jump in if I'm wrong here, but a lot of it I think has to do with just kind of identifying those partnerships um either connecting uh local businesses with um education providers in some case with training providers and just trying to create those opportunities for partnerships. Um you know it there are uh a lot of ways that it benefits you know everybody benefits people entering the workforce. It benefits the companies who you know typically internships uh maybe uh pay a little bit less uh or have a different kind of approach uh than you know hiring full-time staff or something like that. So, uh, you know, I think for the large part, it's it's just kind of, um, you know, getting opportunities for, uh, to connect education and training providers with businesses that are looking for staff.

Okay. And then a um second thing that I was uh trying to get clar wanted to get clarification on is uh there was in one of the um slides I don't remember which one uh provide rental [clears throat] assistance. Now, does that mean um the city providing it or us assisting the city assisting renters or maybe first-time home buyers uh with assistance? Because if we the city give incentives, how does that keep the city profitable or how does that get funded? I guess I have a ton of questions in that arena. Yeah. So, a a couple of things. The first thing I was saying there, I'll let you um is while there are a variety of uh ways to structure either rental assistance or down payment assistance and a variety of different kind of funding options that may or may not be available, you know, for the local jurisdiction or municipality to direct some of those funds to set up programs like that. um what what you're seeing on these slides is is just kind of us maybe reporting what we heard in these stakeholder sessions. And so they're not necessarily strategies that we're even bringing to you today to kind of think about, you know, even get kind of responses to whether or not, you know, you would be on board for those kinds of strategies. We'll have lots of time and we'll definitely be having those conversations down the line. uh this is largely what we heard about in those rooms and just kind of reporting that to you. Um [clears throat] it's quite possible that you might see a strategy like rental assistance or down payment assistance or something like that at that comes out of the recommendations or you know that we might want to float and think about

implementation steps at a later date. Um but you know really today I mean um you know I think there were lots of really interesting ideas and and we were uh very encouraging to say there's no wrong ideas or we're not even necessarily at the point where we're thinking about trying to implement some of these ideas. We just really wanted to kind of have a brainstorming activity, think about how people want to, you know, we're thinking about different ways. You know, I I uh and as this always happens in these conversations, there are some ideas that maybe, you know, don't make sense for a given community. Whether that's because of access to resources or whether that's you know existing capacities or or even in some cases in work we've done in some states we hear lots of recommendations that actually are not legal in that state for example. And so largely this is just kind of um us collecting information ideas people are having uh and we're just kind of sharing that with you.

Does anybody else have any I was going to say okay. Does anybody else have any questions? Moving on. Great. Um, so one of the things that we heard hold on a lot of Sorry,

hold that thought. I I want to just address the question. He's correct. The workshops were just bringing ideas to the table. But the subject of bringing it to the to the master plan is because of the population that the city does possess of rental properties and how do we move them from a rental to an occupancy that is owned and what design programs are available and what kind of assistance is there. The other thing that goes along with this is the cost. Not only in a owner own a a non owner occupied property is the own occupied property that has a low mod income family living in it. How do we get them to upgrade their property? How do we get them to maintain blight from their property? And that's where this program needs to be addressed in the master plan. And we've proposed it to be considered as we go down the road in this project, in this process, is to break this thing into u a much smaller um neighborhood evaluation so that we can assess where our first floor uh ranch brick homes are versus where our um 1942 um matchbox homes are. and what we have to do to bring both of those types of neighborhoods to an equal place of of quality of life. So pro that both of those processes allow us the opportunity to expand our master development of residential development if we can break it into a much tighter narrower district to determine what's really needed and then what process can we use to get there. So, if rentals can go from rentals to ownership based on a design program for being allowed to rent without calling it a lease, but moving it into that, then maybe we can get them into renting with the intent to own and occupy for themselves. But that would be

the program that we would be that was brought to the table at this workshop for them to consider. Pardon? [laughter] She already she's whispering in my ear. And it's basically the rentorship that we need to bring into the city and that's what brings this whole thing together. Workforce. Yes. Workforce. Does that help answer your questions going forward? Kind of [laughter] chair.

Yes. Um uh resource and a thought um and a comment um resource. So through Mcome Countyy's planning and economic development department, they do have a program called fueling the talent pipeline that is trying to help districts build some of these um well the pipeline as it speaks. So they're trying to pair up whether it be a manufacturing facility or a small business owner. Um so they are actively seeking out grants. Um, they have some one-day programs like manufacturing day that brings thousands of students together to see all sorts of different kinds of careers under one roof. I think they do it at like the suburban collection showplace or something like that. Um, and there are there are other things that they do through that program as well, but that's just kind of a a taste of it. Um for from the district perspective, um one thing I know that can be challenging is a lot of these amazing uh professionals, be they a cosmetologist or a builder or an electrician, um can make significantly more money working in the field than uh what certain you know districts might be able to afford to pay those professionals. So it can be challenging uh even when the district figures out okay there's this interest for this particular career path to find and then to retain um a qualified instructor to actually keep that program going and grow it over time. Um and the last thing is I'm glad we see um advocacy for a county land bank up there. I know it was something that was brought to the county board of commissioners two years ago with funding from the state land bank. Unfortunately, they did turn it down at that point. Um, as a city, we are too small to start our own land bank. Um, and we did uh have the opportunity to participate in a real estate forum today

at uh Mcome Community College Center campus. So, uh, that was something that I raised again which was again I was told you have to go to the board of commissioners. So, I do think that's something positive that we could advocate for, especially with uh recent Supreme Court rulings around tax reverted properties, which um our resident expert, Miss Hullman, knows a lot more about than I do, but um yeah, definitely a good thing to see up there. Thanks. Does anybody else have any comments before we turn it back to Aaron? Erin, you're back up. Um, so one of the things that came up um, a lot that we heard a lot about was, you know, the business ecosystem, small businesses. And so with that, we wanted to bring Brett in to talk about small business ecosystems.

Not to be rude, you have exactly 19 minutes before we have to be done.

Yeah. Uh, I'll try to go quick. So, a couple quick things. Uh Aaron mentioned earlier this is uh my my component of the presentation is is designed to be informative hopefully. Um two it's very generalized right I'm going to talk about what experience in our previous work and research has shown um about what constitutes a successful small business ecosystem. This is not East Point specific. Okay. We're kind of laying the foundation today um to kind of give you an overview of what a successful small business ecosystem needs to look like and then through our analysis we'll start to determine what East Point has, what it doesn't have, what the opportunities are and then ultimately those will help us formulate the appropriate strategies to ensure that East Point is wellprepared to support small businesses in the community. So, I just wanted to kind of lay that groundwork before I get started. Erin, if you go to the the next slide, please. Um, first and foremost, I think it's important to define a small business. Um, oftentimes we speak about small businesses as if they're all the same. Um, and so these first couple slides, we're going to try to talk about what really constitutes a small business. On the screen here, you'll see a very technical definition from the SBA. Um, simply put, the SBA defines a small business as an enterprise with 500 or less employees. Now, there are some differences across industries, but it really is kind of the general rule of thumb is the SBA, the Small Business Administration, considers anyone with less than 500 employees a small business. Okay. We also know that small businesses have a profoundly positive impact in the communities in which they

reside. Um we know at the national level roughly half of America's workforce is employed by a small business. Uh we also know that revenue generated by local small businesses is much more likely to stay in the in the community. And I've included what I think is a particularly um apt definition of kind of what they are and and how they support a community. Says here they create new jobs. They generate taxes. They buy and supply local products and services. Um they create property owners and renters and they provide economic stability. I think more than that they're cultural enhancers. Um, they bring a vibrancy and a vitality to a community. They bring character to a community. Next slide. I mentioned they're not all the same. Um, and we've tried to kind of categorize them um, in a very simple framework as you see here on the screen. First, we have what we call microenterprises or very small businesses. These typically employ less than five people. Um, they have very low capital requirements to start. They typically generate less than $250,000 in revenue and can often be seen as side gigs, lifestyle businesses. Um, they are the professional services firm, the attorney or the accountant who has hung their own shingle and started their own firm. Um, we also have main street businesses. And main street businesses, they sell their product or service in market. So, they're not typically exporting out to other markets. Um, these are typically your cultural and

amenity enhancers, the local restaurant, the coffee shop, the bookstore, the record store, the bike repair shop. Um, and they're really kind of focused on that long-term sustainability in the community. We also have scalable businesses. These are what, you know, typically are referred to as kind of your tech businesses, your tech startups. Uh, they typically have some type of proprietary technology or service that they offer. Um, they're focused on emerging or new markets. um they're really focused on that hyper growth and and typically or generally um they're focused on selling their company to a larger corporation. And then we have those mature businesses that have um achieved some level of sustainable success. They're over five years old. Um they employ between 500 to 250 employees. they've validated their product or service in the market. Uh they typically have steady revenue and they're focused on growth and in expansion uh into the current markets in which they operate. Now we understand that East Point the the the mostly have the microenterprises the main street businesses and the mature businesses less of the scalable businesses today. Also want to talk about this concept of the ecosystem and once again I've provided a very simplified visual to understand the small business ecosystem and again you see a definition here on the screen set of conditions and supports that all entrepreneurs need to thrive to launch a business expand their business uh retain their business. Um you see four key component parts here of

the ecosystem that all successful ecosystems need to possess. Um they need people in talent and we'll go into in a little bit more detail what that means. Um they need customers and markets. They need to sell their product or service to customers. They need access to capital. And then they need that support service, that network of support services to assist them. Um there this is all tied together by a strong culture of coordination, collaboration, champions, supporters, strong policy. Um I'd be remiss to note that there's probably one element that I should have included that you don't see here. Uh especially given kind of the the overall scope of our work and you being the planning commission, but physical space is another element that is required to have a successful ecosystem, right? Spaces for businesses to operate, to expand, and to grow into. Those storefronts on your main street are also a critical component of an ecosystem. You can skip this slide. This is just another, I guess, visual representation of the ecosystem. We're we're we're stretched for time here a little bit. So people and talent are are absolutely the most important component of a successful small business eco e ecosystem. They're the doers, the risktakers, the innovators, the culture builders. We can think about people and talent in a couple different way uh couple different ways. We need the entrepreneurs themselves, right? We need those risktakers, those innovators. Um they need employees. So they need people that have the skills, the expertise, the education and the training to employ. Um and then we also need a network of mentors and champions to support those

entrepreneurs. U successful entrepreneurs that can share advice and wisdom with new entrepreneurs. Um and then we also need that peer-to-peer networking. Um so that entrepreneurs can share resources, ideas, uh serve as sounding boards for each other. Typically, you're going to see these universe of people and talent in universities, school districts, local workforce boards. These are all key partners required to cultivate that strong network of people and talent within an ecosystem. Next is capital. The reality is is businesses need capital to operate. Um access to capital across the business life cycle cycle continuum um is essential for entrepreneurs and local small business owners to launch, expand and scale their operations. Small businesses at different stages of the life cycle require different types of capital. um the capital that they need fuels their investment in the physical space, technology needs, equipment, and that talent we referenced earlier. Um we also know that increased lending and investment in small businesses as I mentioned earlier is more likely to circulate money across the community. And then easy access to capital enables firms to access working capital to manage any market disruptions, supply chain disruptions or any economic downturns. So again, you see here a list of partners, very generalized, but your traditional commercial banks or credit unions, uh, community development finance institutions, uh, often referred to as CDFIs, those are missionbased lenders. Um, it's also important to have an equitybased investment network, whether that's angel

investors willing to invest seed capital in an innovative startup or small business or venture capital for those scalable business. We also have public financing tools which typically serve as gap financing tools for small businesses that aren't often able to raise the uh capital required or have the equity required that commercial banks require of them. So we bring in public financing tools to fill those gaps. Um, but again, I think the point here is there's a a multitude of capital sources required for businesses across that business life cycle continuum.

You have nine minutes.

Yeah, I know. I feel like I'm rushing. I know I'm rushing. Um, I'm watching the clock almost as much as I'm watching my slide here. Um, business support services. So this is a big broad category but these are those training providers, technical assistance providers, mentorship networks that help entrepreneurs with business management, marketing, financial skills. Uh we also know that they can support um business planning, strategic planning, marketing assistance. Um these are oftentimes both public sector partners like a small business development center or a manufacturing extension partnership. But this is also a trusted network of private enterprise accountants, attorneys, um your insurance providers, right? a strong network of professional services to support small businesses in the variety of needs that they may have to start, sustain and grow their enterprise.

Next slide. We mentioned uh markets. Businesses need to sell their products and services to customers. Um they can sell to local residents or consumers. They can sell to large institutions or oftentimes what we refer to as anchor institutions. They can sell to the government. They can sell to large corporate institutions. They can sell to um hospital systems, school district systems. But there needs to be access to these large buyers for small businesses to succeed. We also need to consider the fact that they may want to or may have a product or service um that they can export into international markets. And so providing them the assistance or the wherewithal to enter new international markets is also essential. Also plugging them into existing supply chains. All right. Sorry Erin, you're rushing me here. Um key partners, state and local government, international businesses offices. The state has one. uh various trade associations, chambers of commerce play the this role in a very organic way connecting businessto business opportunities for small businesses and I mentioned those anchor institutions those large employers hospitals government um etc. And for all of this to happen, you have to have a strong uh culture of coordination and collaboration across key stakeholders, including you all, the planning commission and the folks in the room that that work for the city. Um, you need to generate trust with your small business owners, right? The old saying of I'm the government, I'm here to help you. um used to be kind of a punchline, but really the city of East Point really needs to prioritize fostering that trust and those relationships with the small businesses in their community. Um they need to

design programs and policy and legislation that supports small businesses. Um and then there really has to be a collective effort across a variety of stakeholders um to embrace a shared vision, shared goals to create that collective impact for the small business community at large. And again, here you'll see some key partners. City and county government, economic development organizations or EDOS, workforce development boards. Um, the private sector, your largest employers should be at the table when discussing strategies to support small businesses. Philanthropy is increasingly playing a role in supporting small businesses. And then the small businesses themselves, they need to be at the center of this. um building that trust and building those relationships will enable you to understand their their needs and a really dynamic environment. So I really rushed through that um but I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have about the presentation.

Anybody have any questions? So will you be presenting your findings to city council since none of them were at any of the meetings? Was that a dick? Totally. Um, will you be presenting your findings to city council? The findings that we just presented today, correct?

Um, we don't have anything scheduled. I mean, you know, we're not necessarily on their schedule at this moment, but we're happy to present these findings. As Erin mentioned, these are really kind of early uh findings, although obviously what Brett presented uh is a little bit different, but as far as the stakeholder uh engagement findings, um there's going to be much more of that to come. I think this is just kind of our first look at some of those things. As Aaron mentioned, we have surveys in the field. We have those boards from the open houses to process. Uh and so we'd be happy to present to city council really at any time. Uh we were happy to see some city council members at the open houses including uh including the mayor. Um but we uh you know would be happy to do it anytime. Uh just you know I guess if I got to choose I would maybe wait until we have a little bit more uh you know to present but we're happy to do it.

Okay. And then the other request that I have is when we do this virtual thing again, uh, can we confer with our esteemed colleagues here on dates before we just randomly pluck a date out of the air because it's important for all of the commissioners to be here. Granted, some were sick today and some that's things you can't get around. Um, but it would be nice if we had targets that we could actually put a little input into. Uh, so we have a full board. It's important that every started a little earlier. And started a little earlier. That way I don't have to play timekeeper. Please.

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. We're we're very open to work with you on selecting uh dates that work better for Thank you. Uh I have something. So, um I agree. I think it's premature to forward anything to or have them have a meeting with city council. Okay. Um, I guess city administration, if they wanted to, could forward the findings for now, but I don't see a reason for them to Okay. have to have a formal meeting and spend more money. Um,

and as far as starting meetings earlier, um, some of us don't have flexible schedules to get here earlier because we have day jobs. You've heard the request. Let's schedule meetings out about the same time, but we'll just ask maybe we have to do them a little bit more faster or and more in advance or have a special meeting on a different Thursday night. Okay. All right. Do you have anything else for us? So, I can move us in. Thank you very much for everything. Sorry about the sped up version. Not a problem. Good to see you all. Thank you.

Have a great day. Take care. All right. Moving on to the f the hearing of the public. As this was a special meeting, there is only one hearing of the public. You have exactly three minutes to speak. If you wish to be heard, please write your name on the piece of paper that may or may not be on that podium. Does anybody wish to be heard? Anybody wish to be heard? Seeing none, we'll close the hearing of the public and we'll move on to commissioner's comments. Uh, I'm going to exclude administration. I apologize since we are short of time. Miss Ulinsky, I have nothing. Miss Moody, I have nothing. Mr. Sassic, I have nothing. Chairman Deont has nothing. Moving on. Can I get a motion to close the meeting?

So moved. We have motion by uh Mr. Sassic. We have support by Miss Moody. Secretary, please call the role. Mr. Sassic, yes. Mrs. Moody, yes. Miss Yulinsky, yes. Chairman Dant, yes. All right, we will take a five minute break and then reconvene.