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A second option is for the city to grant a tax abatement to the project equal to its portion of real estate taxes. This would generate the same number of dollars as the phantom tax increment approach, but there are drawbacks. Tax abatement is a less flexible tool and the city would have a more difficult time exercising the control over the project which it desires. If this option is pursued it is strictly a city - developer arrangement and does not involve the EDA. The key consideration whenever public assistance is offered is whether the public benefit outweighs the cost. There are at least three benefits to be gained by EDA assistance to the shopping center project. The first involves timing of the development. No one knows for certain when, or even if, a particular development will occur. However, the consensus seems to be that some retail development will occur on the subject property within five to ten years. A benefit of assistance would be to advance the initiation of the project. The goal would be to have a retail development under construction soon and substantially in place within 18 months to 2 years. This would mean services available to members of the community earlier than might otherwise be anticipated and would set the tone for development within the redevelopment project area. A second benefit would be to have greater discretion over the land uses which are included within the development. Typical zoning controls are not designed to allow fine distinctions among uses. For example, in a commercial district it would be expected that retail uses would be allowed, perhaps to the exclusion of all others. This would exclude residential or industrial uses but not make a distinction among the wide variety of potential retail uses. If the city is interested in including or excluding particular retail uses, zoning is simply not an adequate tool. Offering assistance to a developer would give the EDA the ability to prohibit or require the inclusion of specific uses. For example, if construction of a YMCA in The Village is deemed critical, it would be possible to exclude a competing facility from locating in the shopping center (at least for the length of the development agreement). A third justification might be the enhanced architectural and design control which would be possible under a development agreement. Building codes, zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations do not allow the attention to detail which might be desired by a city seeking to promote a "quality" development. By offering financial assistance, a city earns its place at the table with regard to these matters. Skillful use of this leverage would allow the city to achieve enhanced site plan and design quality over that which could be extracted through typical land use regulations. There is, of course, a cost to all of this. The proposal (subject to further discussion) is for the EDA to offer assistance in the amount of approximately $69,000 per year over ten years. The true cost of such an assistance package is somewhat less than the face amount of $690,000. Although it is beyond the scope of this memo to quantify that cost, the assistance outlined above represents a stream of payments. The present value of those payments is less than $690,000. In addition, if it is true that development of the property has been advanced by a number of years, taxes generated in those years are dollars which would otherwise not have been paid. Nevertheless, there is a true cost to the city for RHB- 150056 LN 140 -64 2