Community Economic Development Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

That's right.

Are we good to go?

Yes. Good

morning. We're going to call a meeting to order. Today is 04/15/2025. And it is 10:35. And we're in Room 244. And I call the Community Economic Development Advisory Board meeting start with with the presentation. Presentation. Presentation.

I'm

Thank you very much. And at this time, we'll stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now on to public comment.

There was no evidence. Yes.

Excellent. And approval of the minutes. You've had a chance to review the minutes from the 02/18/2025 meeting. And they get a motion to approve those minutes.

I make a motion to approve it.

Okay. I second.

So that was I'll the the at we'll then to eighteen, twenty twenty five. I don't know you've had a chance to review those. We need a motion to approve the minutes presented for the March 18 meeting.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Of of

of Board

Good morning.

I will ask a bit of forgiveness. Laurie Barnes, deputy director, was intended to,

present this item. She had an emergency and was not able to attend. So I just came back from vacation yesterday and So, saw this item essentially, prior to the unified of

of

state

question. I properties that we've heard was that there was a lot restriction on hours of operation for those properties. No business could be conducted between the hours of 10PM and 5AM. Didn't matter what it was. Didn't matter what type of business it was.

Even if it had no impact on surrounding properties, it could not be conducted. We do believe based on the feedback that we've received over the last few years, that is the reason why most of those properties did not develop, only one developed. When we brought forward, potential changes to the Unified Land Development Code, during 2022, 2023, and 2024, we did staff recommended that the hours not be included so that there were no limitations on hours of operations primarily because we carefully reviewed those proposed uses allowed in those areas. And and let me clarify that the neighborhood commercial zoning district no longer exists. It was replaced.

There are two districts that, affect properties primarily along our major thoroughfares, Price Boulevard, Cranberry, Salford, Chamberlain. Some of those some of those properties along, Chamberlain, Cranberry and Salford. But primarily Price. And if, Randy could please zoom in on price, I can give you, sort of a look at some of those properties. So you'll notice the the shaded color that's labeled, CT.

That's corridor transitional. Those uses, the nonresidential uses were carefully selected to present the least impacts on surrounding neighborhoods as well as, compatibility measures that were adopted in the ULDC that provide additional buffers and various other types of architectural, and physical measures that provide that not only look and feel of compatibility with surrounding uses, but mitigate noise, sound, those types of things. Staff did recommend that in the CT and the corridor district, that hours of operation were not restricted because we knew based on the feedback that we've been receiving that that was going to hinder economic development. And the CT and corridor districts that were adopted by

the

commission are, a large factor in the increased economic development potential that the commission was asking us to pursue with this change. There was a lot of discussion on this. In the end, the commission retained the limitation on the hours of operation. So current ULBC still has the limitation of no business at all between ten p. M.

And five a. Am. We've received numerous calls, for, potential businesses, developers and, small business owners who would like to, build something in these districts. But every time the hours of operation has kept them from moving forward. And it's primarily the the we've received a lot of calls from, potentially from restaurants that would like to open in some of these areas.

They are they are not able to because they cannot close at ten p. M. Most of them stay open until eleven and they are not able to do that. Additionally, especially along price where we have the widening that is about to start, people are looking, for ways to sell their homes, convert them to commercial uses, which happens a lot in cities as they transition those corridors, that the the homes transition from a a single family home into a business, a real estate office, veterinary offices, doctor's office, those types of things. Something like a veterinary office would be perfect for some something like that.

However, they would not be able to walk a dog after 10PM if they had, dogs there overnight, they could not accept emergency patients between the hours of ten p. M. And five a. M. So, it really does restrict, the types of, uses that can go in and it will, we've already seen, that it will stop economic development potential in these areas, and the the ultimate conversion of of these corridors.

Staff, as as part of the re our continued review of the ULDC and, our duty to bring items that we find, in the ULDC that we believe need reconsideration. We are bringing this to the CDAB in, hopes that you could give us some feedback, potentially provide us a recommendation that you might like to make to the commission. As far as potential changes to this, staff still maintains that eliminating the hours of operation is critical in order to, bring economic development into these areas. The commission can always look at additional compatibility measures or mitigation measures if they believe certain individual uses, for those issues. But, overall, we do believe that the economic development purposes will not be fulfilled as long as these are maintained.

So that's where we are on this. We would like, your feedback potentially, providing the staff with direction, to take an item to the commission for consideration and a recommendation from CDAP. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name's Elena Red. I

have a question. Is this can we ask now? Is there a process if we're going to bring in the elimination of hours of operation restrictions? Can we also bring in what businesses that we will find acceptable versus allowing if we make that carte blanche today, it might open it up for the ones that are not favorable and that could perceive that perception. We allow all now to come in.

Yes, absolutely. Part of your packet includes the list of uses. And ZDEP's recommendation could absolutely contain a list of uses that you wanted to exclude from the carte blanche lifting of the restriction. So there there is that potential. Right now too, I I will say that the, the current language, they adopted it as I said, they kept they kept the old language, so it even prohibits any waivers to that.

So, currently, the commission even has no authority to grant a waiver to those, hours of of operation. So, if there are uses that you're iffy about, that could always be a potential for a waiver if the recommendation was to remove that waiver restriction.

Excuse me. Wasn't it the commission that said that that gas station that wanted to go up there at Trice And Cranberry couldn't have the car wash?

Correct.

Well, that's restriction, right?

That is a restriction. It was after that that the commission put in the restrictions for the hours of operation and that shut down essentially shut down all development in those districts.

Have you asked every homeowner on price whether or not they intend to sell? Or are there any holdouts?

So we typically don't reach out to homeowners like that. That's not something I'll say multiple things have gone up for sale on price. They're they're facing three years of intense construction.

Right.

A of what And

we're

get that have transitioned their major corridors from, primarily residential to commercial, you will see, these homes sell to commercial uses. You'll see real estate agents, dentists, doctors, veterinarians, hairstylists. You'll see a lot of those types of uses that go in, and that's very common in cities all over the country.

I'm here. I just want to get some mics over there as well.

That's fine.

I'm just curious as to what restaurant thinks an hour is going to make a difference on closing. I know plenty of restaurants that close at 10:00.

All of the ones that have contacted us, all of the individuals that have contacted us inquiring about opening something like that, when they have heard of 10PM, they have not pursued it further.

I can see that from Selford to Sumter. But from Cranberry to, Selford, I don't see that people would like that very much.

And then

It's more residential.

As I said, there could be limitations, exceptions, waiver potentials. Currently, it's any property in those zoning districts. I'll give you an example. Well, this is not another item. But we have some larger properties that are in those zoning districts. And they would be uses that might front price would be completely buffered from surrounding properties because of other development that would go on within that area. And they still can't be open past 10PM.

Yeah. Well, makes sense from, like I said, from Selford to Sumter and from Chamberlain to Toledo Blade. That would make sense because there's already that kind of development right there in the area.

And it is possible to carve out certain areas as well to lift restrictions in specific areas, maybe have waivers in other areas if the commission deemed it appropriate to that that on a property by property basis.

And what about the people who live on one of the side streets that would be first affected by any business on the corner?

So those are situations where compatibility measures are really important with the buffers, the design of the building. We have intentionally written the code so that the back of house operations don't encroach on the neighbors and that there is that buffer and separation between the residential and the commercial when I say commercial uses, part of the commercial use that would impact them. But as far

as It certainly makes sense to do, make it as commercial as possible because small businesses are having a hard time finding a location.

They absolutely are. We really have no available space. I know at one point last year, I believe our vacancy rate was about 4% on commercial, which is ridiculously low. Have a huge as you all know, we have a huge number of businesses that operate out of their homes. One of the problems that we have is that they have nowhere to grow to.

So when they're ready, especially retail type home businesses that sell their products, when they're ready for a storefront, there are no storefronts. There are no places for them to go. We have many home based service type businesses that could transition to a brick and mortar at some point. But unfortunately, they have no place to go within Northport. We lose a lot to Charlotte County at this point because of their proximity to us and their availability of commercial space.

So when it was particularly priced, when it was changed from residential to mixed use, it would well, I could say it would be implied, but at least an assumption that the hours of operations for that business that would go along that space would be expanded. I understand that the residents would still take according to the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. They have the right to vacate. We see a lot of them doing such. But that's part of the growing pains that we have as a city.

They can stay if they'd like. But understand, this is going to be next to you, not being a hindrance to anybody or trying to be a burden. But at the same time, again, this is growing pains. And this is the price that we have to deal with doing business and growth.

The residents adjacent to those properties might feel a little bit better if you address their concerns individually versus

I'm sorry. Who state your name?

Ron Phillips. Because

for me, living next to a restaurant, that truck that's backing up at 11:30 delivering things or people dumping garbage into the dumpsters and slamming lids at 11:00 or 12:00 is the real issue. So if you can limit certain types of levels of activity and allow them to be open because walking a dog is not going to be an issue, or having patrons exit the property, not necessarily an issue. But it's those activities that would cause a disturbance. Maybe put that in, and then we'll address their worries.

Absolutely. And if CDAP's recommendation is for the commission to consider making changes to that, those are things that we absolutely would look at incorporating in any revised language so that we do minimize those impacts. We certainly our goal is not to cause problems for our existing residents. It isn't. Isn't.

We We have have to to balance balance our growth and our economic development with our residents, understanding that when you have areas of the city that are going to be changing, There will be those growth pains. There has to be a balance to ensure that everybody can get along. Nobody may get their way completely, but there can be, a give and take and balance there. Right now, there really is no balance. It's weighted very heavily, which I can understand this was a big move for the commission to do this new zoning map.

But as we learn and as we get feedback from our potential businesses, this is the process for us to Do we have a record? Is it public record to see how many people have shown interest or businesses shown interest that decided against due to the hours? It's primarily phone calls that we get. People come in to It's talk with Or we could access say, there was 100 We businesses that turned this know there have been multiple ones. It's not really something we track at this point as far as how many we talked to and didn't come back.

As we get our economic development team beefed up, that is something those are the types of things that we do want to track. We're staff challenged at this point. But we developing a programmatic approach to these types of issues. And that is something that we do want to have available in the future.

Is it mostly restaurants that had the issue with the hours? Or were there other businesses?

Currently, it is well, we've had I know we've had They

sell their homes. They

find find a a business business or or an an organization that would like to utilize it, and then they can't. So it's we've had we've had restaurants. We've had fraternal organizations. And I do recall speaking to and I want to say it was an emergency vet hospital that was looking at somewhere to go, and that's why the dog thing really got me.

I just can't see. A restaurant is going to really increase a lot of the traffic on price, which is already heavy. I know it's widening. I don't know how long that's going

to take. The widening of price is a three year process from start to finish.

So are we talking like big chain restaurants?

No, we're not. We're talking smaller restaurants. We have a huge food truck scene a I I question. It was actually our economic that's development team that talked them into expanding. They said, we really think that Northport would be a great place for you to do that.

We were fortunate that they found a location at Toledo Blade and Price existing that they could go into. But those types of things where we have something like that that is ready to expand or we have a startup or a very small local business that would like to do that, we really have very little space for them to be able to do that. So with our food truck scene, we do have some extremely popular food trucks. We hate to lose them to Charlotte County or to Venice or somewhere when we know we have a base here for them as far as customers.

Okay. I just can't imagine like a big TGI Fridays or something

those locations. Locations, major restaurants, steakhouses, seafood restaurants, things like that, they're really looking for more trafficked areas. We may see that at to a low grade in price. We may see that here at Sumter and Price. We'll see it along 41.

But they're they will tend to gravitate towards those major intersections where the smaller startups or mom and pop type restaurants, they're looking for more of a neighborhood feel. They want to be the place where people can walk from their house over to the restaurant. They don't generate the traffic that those larger restaurants generate. And they're also looking for less expensive rents than places will charge. In the

those spaces are expensive.

Exactly. So they're looking for those lower rents that they can get started and plant their feet rather than the really expensive commercial spaces along 41 or at those really major intersections.

Again, these areas that we're discussing are they're mixed. They're designated mixed use. So it is not going to leave room for a major change to come in and do anything. That's not what that area is designed for. So it's just as we continue to talk about this, understand that that's how it was designed.

And if you're not caught up on that, go back into the when they're discussing those different areas of designations so you have a better understanding of what areas are which and how this is a big, big discussion. This is a really big thing. But trying to get these areas the operational hours is going to be key to allowing that little bit of middle ground for those mid sized businesses or smaller businesses to operate. Just

There's as a a lot of work that will go in if CDAP were to recommend that we move forward with this. There's a lot of work that will go into looking at every use and looking at the compatibility measures and determining if waivers would be appropriate in certain situations. So it wouldn't just be a blanket thing. We would be looking at all of that. But really what we're primarily looking for from CDAP today is do you think this is a good idea that we explore this, that we go to the commission? Would you recommend to the commission that we take another look at this?

So with that being said, somebody would like to make a motion? Well, after everything that we just talked about as far as us CDEP making a recommendation for giving commission the Okay or suggesting that they investigate this more?

Essentially, we would be looking for CDAB to endorse a communication from CDAB to commission recommending that the commission take another look at hours of operation for commercial businesses in CTE and CLR District.

Now we have to take that and put it in her own words because we can't. Exactly. Exactly.

I get it. Okay. As long as we can adjust things because I'm

really having a hard time with

the restaurant having to stay open past ten But this isn't Tampa. People want to order all night long.

Even after they stay past ten, their staff still has to clean up.

They have to all

the stuff. That's two more hours of work usually after they close.

Yeah. Exactly.

So But I'll make a motion that we let me see how we can work this that we advise the commission to take a look at the hours of operation for businesses along the CT Corridor to potentially open them up later for select businesses. I mean,

I don't

Could you add the COR, the corridor district? CT and COR.

And COR. There we go. Sorry. A lot of acronyms. But as price develops, I think it's going to be huge to have more businesses, more operations. There's not enough stuff to service Northport.

So we need a second.

I second the motion.

Any further discussion on the motion? That's second by James Drooms, I'm sorry. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries.

Thank you so much. We really do appreciate that. And we will keep CDAP posted as we move forward with this.

You. Sean, how does that then get carried in a letter from the group? Is that something you do? Or is that

something you produce?

Or is it just the minutes?

We provide the minutes to the commission on this.

They'll chunk necessary? Yeah. This is the motion. This is the give it to the necessary parties. Okay.

That was all one chunk. All right. Second one. B, 252178, a discussion of possible action regarding city code chapter six, alcohol beverages section six-four, sales near school, churches, or schools.

Again, Elena Ray, Director of Development Services. This is another item that Ms. Lori Barnes was intended to present. And so I've tried to read up on this since yesterday as much as possible. Essentially, currently, our code and this is part of the city code the code of the city, not the ULDC.

The provisions related to distance requirements for alcohol beverage use have not been, reviewed since 1990. Lots happened since then. The restriction that we currently have of 800 feet, considering the number of schools that we have and the number of churches that we have, a lot of times even churches in strip centers or next to strip centers, 75 on the Southwest Corner. We have restaurants and a hotel that want to go in there. They are adjacent to STC.

Currently, they could not survive the home, because they are within 800 feet of a school SDC.

So

do you investigate that a little further? Because by statute, we are able to serve alcohol at the

college. I know.

I know. That's the loophole

that we're just saying. It's not a K-twelve environment.

I don't

know if

So it doesn't apply to the school, but it applies to any business

in the school.

You're going to post secondary school? Yes. So you couldn't do it in front of a college?

No. Wow. So we have issues. As I said, this has not been visited since 1990.

We

are in a different world from 1990. The item that we have, we've got several considerations that we could do. We could we could specify distance requirements only apply to certain types of businesses like adult oriented or bars, nightclubs, but don't they don't apply to restaurants. We could specify that. We could reduce the limit from 800 feet to 600 feet.

We could specify that the distance doesn't reply if you have a church that's operating in a shopping center, because that does happen. And you could, we could define that the school means a state accredited public or private school for children from preschool or kindergarten through their senior high school year. Currently, we don't have that. So, or, you know, we could, there are other things that we could do. But our ask from the CDAB is, we do believe this needs to be revisited as we expand our commercial base.

And we are looking for, hopefully, a recommendation, from CDAB to the commission to revisit these and potentially either recommend all four of the, things that we have in our, in our registrar item or a general statement that we need to relax our distance limitations. And we can go from there with the commission as far as figuring out what the right reduction

would be.

Isn't the library more of a concern? Almost every program at that particular library is children's programs. I wouldn't worry about STC. That's all adult programs, first of all.

So libraries are not currently included in our restriction?

I can just see somebody starting to complain about that.

Yeah. But libraries, currently, you can operate within 800 feet of a library.

Then they wouldn't have a leg to stand on

I a good question. I

that's

relaxing them.

I have a question. James Jerome. If we're relaxing the restriction of, let's say, the post secondary school concept concept and not near K through 12, would the restriction if we say we restrict all or reduce all four and now we're allowed 600 feet from a school, is there a way to implement where it's still 800 for the K through 12? We don't want that to be relaxed. I think K through 12 should still have that barrier out. But I mean, post secondary, I mean, we should explore that. Okay. We can fine tune

this.

This recommendation doesn't have to be very specific. It can be if you want it to be. But it could just be explore relaxing the regulations. And then we can look at the measures that Ms. Barnes has outlined in the registrar, or we can create some new ones.

I mean, outside of STC, is there any other school board property that would be adjacent to any of these types of properties?

So if we well, go to a church can go anywhere. So a church could move into Price Boulevard. A church could move into one of the existing homes on Price.

Isn't there a church right on 41? That's right next to a marijuana dispensary and a bar and dubs and it already exists.

So we have some issues. And some of those are nonconforming. They can't expand. And that creates a problem. If they want to expand, they're going to have to currently, they may have to go to Charlotte County to do it.

That's just another potential for us to lose business to Charlotte County at this point. You know, it's it's something that I think that there are definitely some areas if you go to the okay. So the green area there, this this green area, Imagine School is North Side Of Price where the cursor is currently. That would mean that any restaurant that wanted to locate at that intersection would not be able to do so.

What is that intersection? Yeah.

Is that Atwater?

That's Atwater.

Okay.

So, the if a small restaurant wanted to locate there, something in the neighborhood of Savor or something like that, they would not be able to serve alcohol. And those are fairly large properties on the South Side Of Price on the corners. Those really are intended for commercial uses. Right. And so, what what a great place to have a small neighborhood restaurant where you can walk from your house to you know, meet your friends. But.

Over there.

Right now, they would be because imagine school is going in on the.

Does it also stop like gas stations and sell alcohol?

It would any any

Convenience store.

Any any store that sells alcoholic

change. Are you looking for a motion to for us to explore this? Yes.

Correct. We're looking for a motion to recommend to the commission that they explore relaxing these restrictions.

Would you like to make that motion?

I'll make that motion.

You got to state the whole thing, though.

Yes. I'd make the motion that we would have you look into exploring the possibility of looking at alcoholic beverages within sales of near churches and schools.

If I could, if you could specify that recommend to the commission.

I recommend to the commission that you explore the possibility of looking at the city code chapter six alcoholic beverages regarding sales in our churches and schools.

Thank you so much. And

that was Julie Lacour. So seeing that we have a new individual that doesn't know our voices and names and lots of new people, state your name after you or before you state what you want to say because she gets lost. My bad. Any second on that motion?

Michael N. D. I'll second it. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? All right. So that motion carries.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

All right. On to the next one. C25-two thousand one eighty four, discussion and possible action regarding proposed ordinance amendment, amending chapter 58 impact fees of the city code, creating the targeted industry business incentive program, and amending the impact fee deferral program.

I will not be doing this.

I was going say that.

I'm going to turn that over to my very capable staff member.

Hello, everyone. My name is Randy Bowling. I am a planner two. It is very nice to see some CDAP members when I was in economic development. And I have with me Maria.

Hi. I'm Maria DiPompom, the impact fee administrator.

And what we are coming back to this board with is the changes we've made to chapter 58 of the impact fee code, now the impact fee code, which CDEV has seen various versions of in the past. And so this is kind of like the end part of what Director Ray just did. This is kind of like some of that end product in somewhat of an ordinance form and to get your guys' opinions on a bit more of the finer details of ordinance. Here's what's changing in Chapter 58. We're expanding the deferral program eligibility and refining those program requirements.

We're creating an incentive program. We are within the incentive program still making sure that we are following some statutory requirements from the state to make the impact fees fund whole. In the previous version that CDEP saw a presentation on, we were not doing that. We were just outright waiving them. Due to Live Local Act, we are allowed to do an affordable housing exemption to impact fees.

And we're also allowed to do we're also putting a little more provisions on what affordable housing projects are allowed to qualify for this program. And we also have process improvements. And this is due out of the fact that since February 2023, we've actually had a full time impact fee administrator. And so a lot of the role that now Maria does is just a little more codification of that, just so that there is some consistency from impact fee administrator to impact fee administrator. Here are the changes in code that we are that on the broad scale that we're doing.

In current chapter 58, it's called planning and development, with Article one being in general, Article two being developments of regional impact, and Article three being impact fees. Article one and Article two are not needed anymore. Article one is just a line that we adopt the comprehensive plan, which we no longer have to do in city code because of the ULDC. And Article II involves developments of regional impact, which the state no longer has. So now Chapter 58 will be, if this proposed ordinance passes, Article I, fee administration and schedules, Article deferral program and Article III, the targeted industry incentive program.

So now we're going to talk a little bit about the incentive program, which was borne out from conversations that the Economic Development Division had with CDEV at this point several years ago, but we are still working on it. So an overview of the targeted industries program is that in certain activity centers and in the qualified opportunity zone, you'll be able to have your impact fees mitigated or reduced based on certain standards, those standards being a job creation and a capital investment amount. The program will be as funds are available, meaning that each petition will go to commission, and commission will then decide the funds being available. And the compliance period will be of five years. The original version that CDEV saw had a compliance period of ten years.

We've moved it to five due to legal getting back to us with some concerns about statutory we have to spend the fees in five years. So therefore, it's hard to then legally justify having a program about it longer than five years. And for those that don't know, that is Welland Park when it was being constructed. So here are the eligible industries. These match what is done in the Camoine study. And just a show of hands, is everyone here familiar with the Camoine study?

I don't think so. Okay.

So I'll give a brief thank you, Chairman. The Camoine study was a market feasibility study the city did looking at certain activity centers to see what is the best development in those activity centers and looking at also what's the need of those industries that we have here in the city. And so this follows that, as well as some state level targeted industries that the state of Florida has where they can apply to state programs and get their own incentives. So obviously, we want to mirror the state. If someone wants to come, let's say they're a corporate headquarters, we want to be able to kind of stack those incentive programs.

So there are two kind of paths to qualify. One is just a high wage route, and the other is a high wage a medium wage, but high capital threshold. So you could just create 10 jobs at 115% of the average private wage here in the Northport MSA, the metropolitan statistical area. Or you could do 10 jobs, say, at just 100% of the average private wage in the MSA. But you also must have a capital investment of at least $1,000,000 And just so you guys know, at the state level I wasn't able to get the MSA figures for today.

But at the state level, to be at 100% would be $34.2 an hour. And to be at 115% would be $39.33 an hour. That would change somewhat because we need to get the Northport numbers, but general guidelines. Here are those mitigation thresholds. These are stackable up to 50% mitigation.

And the reason why we're doing it in this kind of threshold manner is that it's allowing the mitigation to be scalable to the project. So you can be a small office job. And let's say you're doing a small office building. That has a small capital investment because, for the most part, if you're redoing an office building or whatnot, that's not a huge capital investment. But let's say you're fitting a lot of people in that building. You can then do a low capital investment mitigation, but maybe then a higher job mitigation. So you could do a 15 plus five. And then I will turn over to Maria, who will do a little brief overview of our deferral program.

Thank you. Hi. I will go over the deferral program. And we are looking at what our current code offers and what the proposed code will offer. Currently, only development valued at at least $1,000,000 was eligible. In the proposed code, the eligible development is sorted by categories. So office will have a minimum of 5,000 square feet. Industrial, 15,000 square feet minimum. Restaurants, excluding quick service, will have 3,000 square feet minimum. All other city fee categories will have 50,000 square feet minimum.

This will also be open to expansions and changes in use, affordable nonresidential development, For example, micro units, pop up retail in offices, food trucks, non residential development created by a community land trust. Also, the current code lacked applicant requirements. So in the new code, there'll be improvements in that area. Current security was only a property lien, and the lien process is time consuming and risky for the city. In the new proposed code, we will be using a performance bond or another form of security that's safer for the city.

And the timing of the application and possible refunding will remain the same. And the deferral length, currently, it's three years. With the proposed code, it will be five years.

Question on that.

Yes.

Will these two just understanding my thought process. Will this allow Northport to have more executive office suite space?

Yes.

So what I would do is that and so the way that the deferral program is is that you can defer your fees, which then allows you to have more capital to in the sense of liquid capital to be able to put that investment into the fiscal space. And then once you're up and running for five years, you then hopefully have remained you've made that capital back to then repay your fees. Gotcha.

Makes sense.

What happens if the business fails within those three years?

That's why we have security measures like a performance bond. So we would just follow-up

That's what you're putting in place. Okay. They

still are able to do a property lien if that's the metric that they that's the way that they choose to do it, the old code just was a property lien. And so which also made that not the greatest to use is because that means that only the people who could qualify for this program were property owners. There are lessees that pay impact fees, which means they would never be able to do this because they don't have a property to put a lien on.

Correct. Thank you. You're welcome.

And we will also review process improvements in affordable housing. So affordable housing exemptions will be scaled by AMIs, which are area median income that's based on metropolitan statistical area. And we are following Sarasota's threshold exemptions. We are offering 75% below 60% AMI, 50% between 6080% AMI, and 25% between 80120% AMI. Anything above that is not considered affordable housing.

And the Live Local projects do not qualify. We are also improving processes, accessory building exemptions, shell building procedures, clarified square feet definition to address outdoor dining, and clarified refund process. Do you have any questions?

Any questions?

Not all at once, everybody.

That just makes sense.

Today, we are seeking your recommendation to commission for your recommendation to the city commission to adopt the proposed ordinance.

May I add? Elena Ray. I'll add that our staff has worked on this for well over a year, probably more in the neighborhood of two years. It also has been with the city attorney's office for probably a year. They did have outside counsel look at it, counsel that specializes in these types of tax deferrals and incentives.

So it has been I just want to assure you in preparing this item for your review, it has been thoroughly vetted by experts in this field to help us get the most that we can. And going through that legal review, I think, was important to help us with that area of expertise that our staff really didn't have. So I just want you to know, we've already done that. So we wanted to make sure that we brought you a product that we felt was the best we could get at this point before getting your input.

Excellent. Thank you. So we have to make a motion for this recommendation. Who would like to make that motion?

Ron DePillo make a motion that we recommend to the city commission to adopt the proposed ordinance as presented.

And do you have a second?

I second. Julie Lacour.

Motion by Ron DePaulo, second by Julie Lacour. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No? Excellent. The motion.

Thank you.

Thank you, chairperson. Thank you. Thank you. It's a

lot of work.

I was here when we started that. I was

happy that someone was still here.

I remember. Okay. And on to updates. July '1 50, economic development update.

Elena Ray, back to me. Michael Meerman, our economic development manager, would be presenting this to you. But happily, I can report he is either on his way or has arrived in Nashville, Tennessee for a manufacturing trade show. That is, as the name would suggest, is targeted towards manufacturers, big and small, who are looking to grow. And they've got site selectors there and lots of people who are looking to find properties where they can grow their business, too.

So we want to attract that type of business and we have the land for it. And so he is there representing Northport and he is also our booth there is also being joined by two members of Sarasota County EDC, who have been very, very proactively marketing Northport for industries. So we are very happy. We actually invited them. We found out they weren't planning to go.

They didn't have the budget in their budgeted funds to go to this particular trade show. We asked if they might be interested in coming along and helping us market Northport. And they said absolutely. So I think having them there as a voice for Northport is a great win for us, helping tie us to what most people know Sarasota County. They may not know Northport.

So being able to have them there, I think, is great. We have a lot of updates. We've had, a chamber of commerce presentation, which is similar to the Northport University. I know some of I think some of you have gone through the Northport University. Michael Mehrman made a presentation to their class on March 14.

We also did a Northport University presentation, on April 10, just a few days ago. That was part of the presentation, a larger presentation for development services overall. It was our night to shine. Our new business welcome, quarter two, we did, the new the welcome hosted by Mike McClellan. And just so you are aware, we had to we've got two Mikes Michaels now, both with the last initial of M.

We said, y'all got to choose which one of you is going to go by Michael and which one of you is going by Mike. Because I can't even call one of you now. Michael Mehrman and Mike McClellan is how they agreed to separate their names. So but he Mike McClellan hosted our April 19 welcome. We've gotten really great feedback on those events that the business owners love it.

They love knowing that their city cares about them and their growth and that we're passionate about them being part of Northport. So we've gotten great feedback from our resident from our businesses on that. Mike did a driving tour with Commissioner Duval. He's one of our new commissioners. And so helping him to understand what's going on in Northport, that took place.

We had our Atlanta Brace Spring Training Event, always a big time of year for economic development. Hectic time of year for our small little team. On March 14, we had the SWEET event. It was attended by the city manager, deputy city manager, Ms. Barnes, Michael Mehrman, and representatives from SCF, STC, HCA, and Encompass Health.

So we are looking at we really kind of concentrated on education and health for that event. We've got a lot of health care providers moving into the city. We want to make sure that we ground them here and they know us and we know them and build that partnership. And we're going to be using that spring training program to really even hit harder with these businesses that are coming in, getting them tied to us. So we're looking forward to some modifications in how we go forward in the future with our spring training.

We've had discussions with a corporate relocation firm that is developing leads with relocation specialists in Tampa. We're planning a city tour with those people to show them properties that are available. We've reached out to property owners to get information from them and, about their interest in, what they'd like to do with their property. So that's moving forward. Entertainment Evolution Experience trade show took place in Los Angeles. I got to go to that. I hate flying. I hate changing time zones. But I took one for the team. We went to that.

That was on February 2526. We developed a listing of about 20 potential leads. We are following up with those. Really some very interesting entertainment options, a lot of entertainment for children, children's museum, children's hands on activity centers, lots of those types of things. But also entertainment for adults.

Hallelujah. We need entertainment for adults. Work to do. I businesses don't know Northport that's exists. And so we're getting a lot of interest from them when they find out who we are, where we are, how many residents we have and what our growth trends are.

They think it's great. So we are following up with all of those leads. The one I mentioned, the Assembly Show, South Trade Show, that's the one that Michael Mehrman is at now. Laurie Barnes was supposed to be at that but was not able to attend. Fortunately, have our Sarasota EDC partners who are with us there. I'm sure Michael will have a great update on that for you when he returns. We had the HCA ribbon cutting on March 2. That was fantastic. We are just loving the health care partners that we have coming in. That's going to be huge.

And we have SMH has is moving forward with their plans. They are intending to break ground this year. They are already wanting to do their site work. So we are doing concurrent reviews and moving them as quickly through the process as humanly possible. Gabriel will probably tell you Gabriel and T. J. Will probably tell you it's not humanly possible. We're having to put on our superhuman capes right now. But we're going to get them done. And we're very excited about not only what they bring to the city, but the ancillary businesses that we know will spring forth from that development.

We are evaluating, newest industry silos. We're exploring different types second 19. Seeing the affordable housing front, we know that affordable We're housing, while it's not a direct economic development program, it is an indirect because it affects every one of our employers in the city if they cannot get people who can live nearby. So we did meet with a developer on April 8 who is looking at doing some affordable housing. And we're also attending we attended the early learning coalition.

We're working with our educational partners on expanding job training programs and we're excited about the growth that STC is doing. That is a huge benefit and we're hoping that they get fully funded on their new building that they're doing. We did or we are going to do another, Northport Career Connect job fair. We did the first one ever recently, as you know, and it was, a huge success. We had businesses before that one was even over asking us when we could have the next one.

So we are doing that on May 21 at the Mullen Center. We already anticipate about 50 employers. And we've heard from about we expect about 300 people seeking careers. So great activity. I thank Michael Mehrman and Mike McClellan for doing that.

Mike McCullen has the yeoman's work on that. And I think it's a great idea for Northport. Last but certainly not least, our business tax updates. So far, we've had 128 businesses start up in fiscal year 2025. Still, majority of those, 77%, are home based businesses, so 23 the seeing of of a We

a corridor the areas,

we are are definitely working to see those numbers start to come into better alignment. We love our home based businesses. They're great and we want them to grow. But we certainly need out of the ground brick and mortar as well. So we are while our business growth is good from a number standpoint, we definitely want to see that increase from a nonresidential base. That is the update that I have for you. Hopefully, that was enough for you to chew on for right now. But we do have lots of great things coming. We have interviewed for a new marketing Economic Development Division. They had multiple interviews, some really great candidates.

So we are looking forward to moving forward on that position, getting someone into place so that we can really hone those marketing efforts.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Future agenda items. Anything that we want speaking directly on the topic, save conversation for later, but anything specific that we want to hear about or follow-up on. I was thinking, now that AdventHealth is taking

over

ShorePoint, definitely would love to get some more information on what they're looking to do, how they're looking to impact what their plans are. And then also with the ULDC adoption and the changes that are already taking place at the CT and all that, day care, the growth of day care in the area. I'd love to hear more about that, what's going on.

I can tell you now we do have at least a couple of day cares that are coming in. Now we've got one in Welland Park that's coming. But we are that's

They don't count.

The East Side of the city is in dire need.

We have

a development that is in the process right now with their development plans on Toledo Blade, South Of Price, I believe it's South Of Price for full service day care. That will be a fantastic location and very much needed. We have another high national profile child care company that is looking at this area, Heron Creek. We've had many discussions with them. I think they've been working with the property owner to see if they can sign a contract.

So we've got at least two coming in. We are hopeful for more. We are definitely marketing that. I don't know how many times I've mentioned child care to site selectors and developers. And we have another developer that is looking at property in the Toledo Blade Corridor. They are interested in doing child care as well. So we are doing everything we can right now to drive home to people. We need day cares.

Yeah, we're a young city, average age 46. So there's still babies being made.

And we're the youngest of the region. We have an extremely small demographic a young demographic. So that's something unique about Northport that's not typical of our region.

Are any of those daycares going to James Drum bringing after school care options where they can bring the kids from the school so the parents aren't limited to that 6PM pickup

we to get haven't down to

75.

Heard exactly what their programming is going to be, but that's definitely something that's

Because I find that to be a big need because the timing of the elementary schools

is It's time limit.

Does cut it very short.

Exactly. So that's something we can follow-up on.

I'll add one. Rainy Bowling, planner, too. A, this kind of proves how long range economic development is. But the Heron Creek Daycare Project was actually a project that I got when I was in ED, and we did the response for the request proposals. And they are a full service day care facility.

It

is a process, but we

Everything's a process. So any other topics or specific growth we want to hear from? Well, I will get with Mike and see if there's anything on his agenda that he would like to continue to update us on. Is there any public comment that's enrolled in?

No. All

right. Well, if there's nothing else to be brought before the committee, we can go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 11:45. Thank you.

Thank you.