REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
January 15, 2015
FROM: BRUCE RUDD, City Manager
BY: LARRY WESTERLUND, Director of Economic Development
SUBJECT
Title
***RESOLUTION - Continuing the policy authorizing the City Manager to reduce or eliminate selected citywide impact fees for industrial development projects
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Adopt a resolution authorizing the continuation of Industrial Development Impact Free Elimination/Reduction ("iDIFER") Program that provides the City Manager the authority to reduce and/or eliminate selected citywide development impact fees in order to incentivize the expansion and/or attraction of qualified industrial projects.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On January 30, 2014, the City Council unanimously approved Resolution 2014-18 that adopted a one-year policy that authorized the City Manager to reduce and/or eliminate selected citywide development impact fees in order to incentivize industrial development projects that created jobs, increased property valuations, and promoted economic development. Shortly thereafter, the Administration implemented the iDIFER program, which resulted in seven projects qualifying for the reduction or elimination of the associated impact fees. More importantly, these seven projects were responsible for retaining 374 local jobs and the creation of another 170 new jobs.
BACKGROUND
While California and rest of the country continues to recover from the "great recession", this is not the case in the San Joaquin Valley, which still lags behind rest of California when it comes to the number of jobs created. Nationally, the unemployment rate, as of November 2014, was 5.5% with California's unemployment rate at 7.3%. Unfortunately, Fresno County continues to struggle with an unemployment rate of approximately 11.2%. It should be noted that this figure reflects the number individuals who are actually looking for work and does not include those who have given up job searching; meaning the...
Click here for full text