Agenda Packets - 2016/02/08 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item #: 07H Meeting Date: February 8, 2016 Type of Business: Council Business Administrator Review: ____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Brian Beeman, Business Development Coordinator Item Title/Subject: Consider Resolution 8512 Approving the Revised Public Financing Policy & Application Introduction: As staff was reviewing fee schedules and policies for 2016 in relation to Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and Tax Abatements, it became apparent that the TIF and Tax Abatement policies were outdated and in need of attention. As a result, staff and the City’s legal & financial consultants have reviewed the policies and recommend a combined, updated TIF & Tax Abatement Policy, which is proposed to be called “The City of Mounds View Economic Development Authority Public Financing Policy & Application.” The EDC reviewed the proposed policy on January 15, 2016, and the City Council reviewed the proposed policy at its February 1, 2016, work session. Resolution 8512 is attached for consideration by the Council. Discussion: The City of Mounds View’s Tax Abatement Policy was last updated September 22, 2003. The City’s TIF Policy was last updated June 12, 2000. As staff was reviewing the policies, it became apparent that some of the language in the policies was in need of updating due to statutory changes and to clarify language that often causes confusion in agreements. Ehler’s, the City’s financial consultant, and Kennedy & Graven, the City’s legal consultant, have both reviewed and recommended that the TIF & Abatement policies be combined. The updated version seeks to clarify and bring the policy up-to-date with current statutes and has also incorporated language from other cities’ policies. The proposed policy is now entitled, “The City of Mounds View EDA Public Financing Policy & Application”. The combined policy proposes the following:  Combines the purposes, objectives, and policies from the previous Abatement and TIF policies. These were very similar, so all of those policy ideas are represented in the combined policy.  The TIF policy had square footage, tax and valuation minimums listed. We removed this concept because any project that meets all of the policy criteria will need to at least meet those thresholds anyway. The old policy had evaluation criteria that assigned points for these things. Excluding this simplifies the policy.