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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSpecial Council Meeting 03/19/2018ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ZONE APPLICATION TO NOMINATE LOW-INCOME COMMUNITY CENSUS TRACTS Overview The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 established a new economic development program called Opportunity Zones designed to encourage long-term private investments in low-income communities. The program provides a federal tax incentive for taxpayers who reinvest unrealized capital gains into Opportunity Funds, which are specialized vehicles dedicated to investing in low-income areas called Opportunity Zones. The zones themselves are to be comprised of Low -Income Community Census Tracts (LIC) and designated by governors in every state and territory. Once designated, the tracts will be in place for 10 years. The U.S. Treasury will administer the program. Twenty-five percent of a state's Low -Income Community census (LIC) tracts are eligible to be nominated to the U.S. Treasury for Opportunity Zone designation. Governors have until April 21 (extension deadline) to nominate their Opportunity Zone choices. In Iowa, 60 LIC tracts out of the eligible 239 LIC tracts will be nominated. A map and a list of LIC tracts by state can be found here: www.cdfifund.gov/Pages/Opportunity-Zones.aspx You must verify your eligibility before completing the application. Due Date Completed applications are due by: 5:00 PM ON MARCH 19, 2018 — late applications will not be accepted Submissions must be sent to: opportunityzones(cr�iowaeda.com Instructions Please verify you are an eligible census tract. Submissions cannot exceed five pages. Community Name: City of Waterloo Mayor Name: Quentin Hart Mayor Signature: Date: City Hall Address: City, State, Zip Code: 715 Mulberry Street, Waterloo, Iowa 50703 Primary Contact: Noel Anderson Title of Primary Contact: Community Planning & Development Director Primary Contact E-mail Address: noel.anderson@waterloo-ia.org Primary Contact Telephone Number: 319.291.4366 office or 319.290.6357 cell Eligible Low-income Census Tracts (REQUIRED — rank them if more than one): 1. Census Tract No. 1 (1901 3000 100) 2. Census Tract No. 9 (1901 300 1000) 3. Census Tract No. 7 (1901 3000 700) 4. Census Tract No. 18 (1901 300 1800) What is the vision for your community and how will having an Opportunity Zone assist in realizing that vision? The City of Waterloo is working to revitialize our built community. Downtown Waterloo (Census Tract No. 1) is in the midst of our original Riverfront Renaissance Project (Vision Iowa funded). The City has now completed the majority of the public improvements (Amphitheatre, River Walk Loop, Cedar Valley SportsPlex, dam improvements (for boatable/ recreational water use on the Cedar River), and is working to acquire land, find developers to invest and create attractions, business development, and job creation along the Cedar River riverfront and adjacent downtown Waterloo locations. The City of Waterloo has worked vigorously to eliminate empty, blighted, and underutilized structures and sites for new downtown and pedestrian -friendly developments. With many possible projects available, the added incentive of the Opportunity Zone Program would open options for financing of the projects to commence. These projects include multiple multi -story, mixed-use buildings to bring both residents and businesses to downtown 02/2018 Waterloo. The City of Waterloo continues to take steps to maintain and grow our retail center around the Crossroads Shopping Mall (Census Tract No. 9). With multiple vacancies and a need for new business and retail space, the City is re- examining the transportation network in and around this area, recreating corridors for new business opportunity and site development, as well as assisting existing businesses to strengthen and grow in current locations. In recent years, the City has seen many stores close while trying to bring more residential closer to them through differing incentive programs and infrastructure investment. This Census Tract also contains low-income areas along the Highway 218 corridor which need transformation. An area riddled with incompatible houses next to industrial businesses, the City continues to work towards appropriate land use redevelopment and an infill industrial park setting for the near -highway location. With the use of 657A for the removal of abandoned houses, the City is seeing some infill redevelopment of small businesses, but there remains much to do within the stretch from 6th to 18th Street. The City of Waterloo continues to work on the decaying neighborhood left from the closure of Rath Packing in the late 1980's. Many of the employees from the packing plant lived in these nearby neighrbohoods. Blocks of homes were left abandoned or sold to landlords for close to nothing. As a result, high tenant occupancy and lack of overall investment has occurred over the last 30+ years. This area remains our Targeted Neighborhood for the infusion of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for rehabiliation of homes, business development, and blighted demolitions. The City has recently been successful for the new construction of nine new homes to the area through the use of Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) funding, Iowa Brownfields funding, CDBG funds, and private investment. This represents only two blocks of an approximate 40 -block census tract. The City of Waterloo is searching for ways to increase investment on the northern end of Waterloo. The City recently received two awards for historic preservation grants to help encourage such investment. With a lack of new subdivision development and only a small start towards any type of retail district, the task is monumental. Census Tract 18 has a large amount of vacant lots and is a part of the original "triangle" area where African Amercian workers were allowed to live in the early part of the 20th century. The Opprtunity Zone layering would work to add another tool to the incentives offered to reinvest in this area of the community. With the City of Waterloo working to assemble land parcels for development, cleaning up brownfields within the area, and creating jobs in the Northeast Industrial Park area to the east, we believe the opprtunity for investment is increasing for this area. Describe any economic hardships your community has faced over the last five years. The City of Waterloo continues to struggle in the core redevelopment of our downtown area, with many vacant store fronts and blighted structures - some from as early as the late 1960's. These empty store fronts detract from infill investment from new stores and companies as they see the empty blighted structures and look for other alternative sites. The City has lost many stores in the last five years including KMart, Sears, JC Penney's, Toys R Us, Lone Star, Hobby Lobby, Scheels, Slumberland, Old Navy, and, most recently, a Hy Vee grocery store. OCWEN Financial continues to outsource jobs formerly in the Waterloo communty with over 50,000 sq. ft. of empty office space. The City of Waterloo continues to be a state leader in the use of State Code Section 657A due to a high number of blighted, abandoned, and dangerous structures within the City. The City owns over 100 empty lots within low to moderate income areas (Census Tracts 1, 9, 7, and 18) of the community. The need for new investment and new opportunites to help that investment is critical to turning these neighborhoods and business districts around for a positive impact on the community. To further note hardships, Black Hawk County has been delcared an enocomically distressed county foir the last 3 years ending in 2016-2018. As an econimcaly distressed county, we rank among the bottom 25 of all Iowa counties in a) Average monthly unemployment level for the most recent twelve-month period, and/or b) Average annualized unemployment level for the most recent five-year period. If awarded one of the Economic Opportunity Zones, what would your community do to attract investment? Please explain how this will spur entrepreneurial activity and economic growth. The City of Waterloo prides itself on innovative ways to make projects happen. From being awarded the first Iowa Reinvestment District site, to working in colaboration with Habitat for Humanity for inner neighborhood development, to working through the conventional High Quality Job Creation and other programs with IEDA for business development, the City of Waterloo finds ways to make investment work. For the described areas, the City will work to identify projects, developers, and sites within the zones for infill redevelopment, job creation, neighborhood redevelopment, and blight elimination. As mentioned above, Census Tract No.1 has opportunities in place with further sites being developed for new 02/2018 ,nvestment in mixed-use buildings to acquire sites, demolish blighted structures, environmental testing, and infrastructure upgrades or relocations. The City of Waterloo will work to acquire and demolish sites, utilize our EPA assessment grant funds for environmental testing to attract developers to the area. The City also has this area within the Downtown TIF District and offers tax rebates to help offset upfront construction and business start-up costs. Census Tract No. 9 represents a mix of the highway corridor blighted area, and the Crossroads Mall area. The first spans through both the Downtoiwn TIF District and the Rath TIF District. Both areas offer tax rebates through the respective districts, but the area is also located within the City's Consolidated Urban Revitalization Area (CURA) which also offers tax abatement, which is friendlier and easier for small business development. The City would work to assemble sites and demolish blight from this area for new infill and business investment. The Mall area is located within the Crossraods TIF District, which offers tax rebates for new business development. The City has also committed over $700,000 in Metropolitan Planning Organziation (MPO) funds for transportation study and improvements to help revitalize this area for efficient travel and redevelopment. Census Tracts 7 and 18 lie within the CURA, the Rath, and the Logan TIF Districts respectively, allowing the City of Waterloo to help prepare sites for redevelopment, infrastructure extension, upgrade, or relocation, and tax incentives for investment to the area. Through all of the above-mentioned sites, districts, and programs, the City is essentially working to create shovel - ready sites and a business/neighborhood environment to encourage entreprenurial activity and economic growth. Through past use of these steps, initiatives, and programs, the City has seen selective successes in both business growth, neighborhood revitalization, and overall community improvement. We have partnered with multiple entities - the Boys and Girls Club, Habitat for Humanity, the Waterloo Community School District, Hawkeye Community College, Greater Cedar Valley Alliance, IEDA, SHPO, EPA, DNR, MPO Board, IDOT, HUD, Black Hawk County Economic Development, Waterloo Downtown Corporation, Main Street Waterloo, Board of Realtors (for commercial and residential), Iowa Finance Authority, and, most importantly, private businesses, investors, and developers. Describe key leaders that would work to attract investment into the Economic Opportunity Zone. Key leaders in this effort are: Mayor Quentin Hart, Waterloo City Council, Community Planning and & Development Director Noel Anderson, and Economic Development Specialist Adrienne Miller. All are key leaders in this effort for the City of Waterloo. The City will continue to work with all our great partners in this venture to bring forth new investment and improvements through business development and neighborhood improvements in the areas described within the ten year time period of the Opportunity Zone designation. Describe past successes in bringing economic investment to your community. In recent years, the City of Waterloo has worked in many facets to bring new opportunities and new investment to Waterloo: Residential Development: The City has adopted the City Limits Urban Revitalization Area (CLURA), bringing tax abatement for new one- and two-family homes. CLURA has increased our annual housing construction numbers by 34.8% for one- and two- family homes (42.8% for overall housing unit numbers) with an investment of over $10 million per year. A partnership between the City and the Waterloo Community School District has created over 40 new homes on multiple locations where schools have been demolished throughout the city. This partnership has brought new homes to older neighborhoods, added those properties to the tax base and eliminated maintenance costs for the Waterloo Community School District and City of Waterloo. We have layered our TIF boundaries over public and private land for commercial, industrial and retail properties. This minimizes the infrastructure by the City of Waterloo while encouraging private developers to continue to invest and develop business parks and shovel -ready lots for development. We have further utilized other funding sources to match our local incentives: IDOT RISE program, EPA Assessment grant funds, SHPO and brownfield/greyfield tax credits, and other IEDA programs to help stimulate development for lots development, business investment - such as the Con Agra Pudding Plant expansion for David's Sunflower Seeds, Hydrite Chemical multiple expansions, VGM Companies 70,000 sq. ft. professional office expansion, recreation of the former Grant Hotel sites from a $1.1 million tax base to a growing $15+ million planned tax base (with two phases of three under construction), the reformation and rebirth of the TechWorks site from former Deere and Company buildings through the Iowa Reinvestment District program, the recent announcement by Tyson Foods to add hundreds of jobs and over $50 million in investment to our Northeast Industrial Park area is a continuing and growing partnership by the City of Waterloo meeting the needs for water and sewer improvements for existing business, the construction underway for the $5 million, 50,000 sq. ft. expansion by Crystal Distribution on the brownfield site of the former Rath packing plant is a long term investment by the demoltion of the former packing plant buildings from the area by the 02/2018 City, brownfield testing, cleanup, investment and belief in the overall redevelopment of the area by the community ana by Crystal as a private company, the redevelopment of an empty building on West Airline Highway to allow Criterion Inc., and Accurate Gear (both smaller CNC type companies) to both expand their footprints and industrial space, add employees, and have the City of Waterloo gain additional land in an area for future development, the City's plans to create a rail -served industrial park - partnering with Standard Distribution (using the State LIFT program funds) to kick start this 310 acre park for long-term development near the Waterloo Regional Airport, the City partnering with local entrepreneur Harold Youngblut which allowed him to purchase the former Greyhound Park site and the 100+ acres of land surrounding it (from a California based trust that had no plans to do anything) for development at the Highway 20 and Highway 63 interchange area. This partnership with Mr. Youngblut to install infrastructure, create lots, and bring forth over $30 million in built, under construction or planned projects to the area of the original land site will spur additional development on surrounding sites. What other resources would you combine within the Economic Opportunity Zone to attract an investor? The City utilizes, as mention above, a plethora of sources and resources, including 1) our own local incentives through urban renewal and urban revitalization programs; 2) State and Federal resources through the tax credit and grant programs such as historic, brownfield/greyfield, HQJC through IEDA, Iowa Finance Authority; 3) other grant opportunities through federal transportation funds, EPA funds, EDA funds, and State resources such as SHPO; 4) other sources we may be able to access through designations such as CDBG, NSP, HUD; and finally 5) our relationships with private investors to bring forth the investment. The City of Waterloo has been very successful in working with local entities, developers, and investors as well as national consultants, developers, and contractors to bring forth projects to fruition in our community. The City of Waterloo utilizes Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds to assist with redevelopment throughout the City. TIF funds would be available in many of the Opportunity Zone census tracts listed as eligible for the City of Waterloo. Along with TIF Districts, the City of Waterloo has utlized local, state, and federal funds for many projects throughout the community. Such funds include, but are not limited to, local Urban Revitalization exemptions, State Workforce Housing Tax Credits, state and federal Historic Tax Credits, and EPA brownfield Assessment Grant funds. The City also works closely with the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and Hawkeye Community College who are able to assist with additional programs for new or growing businesses with their talent and workforce development programs. Black Hawk Economic Development is located in Waterloo and is able to assist with Small Business Association (SBA) revolving loans and intermediary relending programs. The City of Waterloo also works with Buxton out of Texas to bring additional leads of companies that are looking to expand their footprint nationally or in the State of Iowa. What is your average unemployment rate over the last five years? Use attached five-year 2012-2016 unemployment rate spreadsheet Census Tract 1 = 33.5% Census Tract 9 = 2.4% Census Tract 7 = 23.3% Census Tract 18 = 24.6% How many business closures have occurred in your community over the last five years? 6 large companies. Several smaller stores. For the 2017-2018 school year, what is the percentage of eligible students receiving free or reduced -priced lunches by district? 56.09% www. ed ucateiowa.gov/documents/district-level/2018/02/2017-18- iowa-public-school-k-12-students-eligible-free-and-reduced How many jobs have been lost because of those business closures in the last five years? 1,946. Note: Black Hawk County has been delcared an econimcally distressed county for the last three years 2016-2018. 02/2018 NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING OF CITY COUNCIL, CITY OF WATERLOO, IOWA /TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS OF THE CITY OF WATERLOO, IOWA: You are hereby notified that a Special Session of the City Council will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, March 19, 2018, in the Harold E. Getty Council Chambers, on adopting the FYE2019 budget. No other official business will be conducted at said meeting. Quentin Hart, Mayor Due and timely of the above notice is hereby accepted the 19th day of March 2018 by me a dully elected, qualified and acting Councilperson of Waterloo, Iowa. Tiskie,‘) Sharon Juon I, LeAnn Even, hereby certify that I have served the above notice of Councilperson Sharon Juon distributing same to her personally. 617 Iv Le .Vr M. Evek Deput City Clerk