Quickies: Stuff from City Council meeting, NWA outsourcing
* MetroPlains Development, the people behind the new downtown apartment complex, got their five-year tax abatement worth $169,000.
* Fees and licenses in Grand Forks will from now on automatically adjust based on inflation, says the City Council.
* Northwest Airlines is outsourcing ground handling and customer service at Grand Forks International Airport. Only trouble is the guys that were going to do it, Northwest partner Mesaba Airlines, says they can't because they're not getting anywhere with their unions. Northwest says it wants to make start the outsourcing by Dec. 12 at all airports with fewer than 50 weekly Northwest flights.
I checked nwa.com to see how far below that threshold we stood. There's only four flights down to the Cities this week! Maybe there's a fifth flight that's full.
* Fees and licenses in Grand Forks will from now on automatically adjust based on inflation, says the City Council.
* Northwest Airlines is outsourcing ground handling and customer service at Grand Forks International Airport. Only trouble is the guys that were going to do it, Northwest partner Mesaba Airlines, says they can't because they're not getting anywhere with their unions. Northwest says it wants to make start the outsourcing by Dec. 12 at all airports with fewer than 50 weekly Northwest flights.
I checked nwa.com to see how far below that threshold we stood. There's only four flights down to the Cities this week! Maybe there's a fifth flight that's full.
posted by Tu-Uyen at 10:07 PM
15 Comments:
Interesting too that the city gives a big tax abatement to the "new guys" and makes sure they stick it to everyone else.
This is a strange zero-sum view of government policy. As a policymaker, you always offer incentives for people to do the things you want and punishments for the reverse.
The city put this lot up for development and anyone could have gone in. I haven't heard a single landlord downtown complaining about it. Do you own apartments downtown? How would you know if they're getting a raw deal?
I have absolutely no problem with the city offering a few incentives to get a developer to do what we have desperately wanted a developer to do for years: build more housing downtown.
The trouble with the incentives to build downtown residences is that we already have hundreds of people living downtown. The condos are only adding a few dozen and the apartments perhaps a hundred, or so. It's not going to have that much of an effect on downtown sans for infrastructure.
Is our city so big we NEED to plant people downtown? We're only five miles on the longest side and 3 at teh shortest. A lot of cities have downtowns larger than our entire town. This is little more than a desperate attempt to revive downtown businesses, but as with all previous city attempts it will have little effect since there are so few that are going to be living in the new downtown units.
In most "BIG" cities as well as "SMALL" cities(e.g Grand Forks and neighboring East Grand Forks) the most important strategy is business retention. If you can't keep what you got what good is new stuff? An airport is essential to a "BIG" town! Even if it is a "LITTLE" town with a big head. I would think Grand Forks had figured that out by now...at least they aren't putting all their resources into a Fountain...are they?
Tax breaks for any business are wrong.
Your morality is misplaced. As I said before: If what the city needs is a major housing project downtown or a major employer with high wages, it's perfectly reasonable to offer tax breaks if the market alone doesn't offer suitable incentives.
Is that fair to the people already paying taxes? Yes, we all pay for things that don't benefit us directly but benefit the city as a whole. The argument that if somebody gets a break and I don't, it means I'm paying for that person's break is misleading. No, duh. That happens all the time. If you offer tax cuts to a certain income class, you leave more of the burden on another class. If you offer federal incentives for new homebuyers, you're forcing existing homeowners to pay for those incentives. It's even less fair if the existing homeowner bought their home before the federal program came about. That's a pointless contention. Living in civilized society means living with trade-offs.
If you want to gripe about tax breaks, let's talk corporate hand-outs from the Bush Administration. Supposedly those stimulate the economy. Well, don't these?
Well, if your grandmother (or mother or even you for that matter) should need the personal care that only a nursing home or assisted living facility can offer, you may be thankful for the tax incentive given a local facility. I know it may affect the privelidged few, as you call them but one's person's privledged few is another person's need.
I do believe a little class envy may mean we whistled out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?
My problem with MetroPlains is that the tax incentive should have been for more condo's downtown (local owners and taxpayers), not more apartments owned by an out of town company with the profits all going to Minneapolis (MetroPlains). Let MetroPlains find a place downtown with cheaper land so they do not need tax abatements, and let a developer build condos in the prime spot downtown with first level parking.
1) The city did consider another condo complex in this location but decided it might flood the market with condos. You obviously think that's not the case.
2) The land is not the expensive component. It is basically free. It's the construction costs that are prohibitive.
"Are you claiming that nursing homes and the like don't charge an huge amount of money for their services?"
And you think everyone at the nursing home pays their own freight?
Who picks up the difference for those that can't pay their own way?
Well if you barely squint and maybe cross your eyes a little that's just another form of subsidy or tax abatement.
Flood the market with condos? The only condos dowtown are the Brownstones, the first condos downtown. They were sold out in a week in Feb. and developed a waiting list of 20 people. You believed these city council people about flooding the market? When I checked with Schoen & Associates this summer they had over 30 people on a waiting list for the 2nd condo project. If land costs were not a problem for MetroPlains, then they should not have needed the tax abatement. City is also trying to buy them parking on the street they do not have to pay for. This was a prime location for condos rather than apartments.
The only condos dowtown are the Brownstones, the first condos downtown. They were sold out in a week in Feb. and developed a waiting list of 20 people. You believed these city council people about flooding the market?
At the time the council made its decision, there were no condos at all downtown, so there wasn't an easy way to gauge the market potential.
You're right that the council could have changed it's mind later when it saw the strong demand for Schoen's development.
Still, bear in mind that Schoen has a Phase 2 that would be bigger than the Elite Brownstone that's now under construction. I'm not sure if those have all been snapped up or not. Even if they have, at this point what they'd have is intent and not a signed contract.
It is very good news that Schoen & Associates are planning a second condo project downtown. Hope it is in central downtown. MetroPlains site would have been ideal. Also heard the Griffith bulding was sold and may become apts or condos. Any word on that?
I have heard the same thing and need to look into it. Sounds like an interesting but expensive plan.
Elite Brownstone part 2 would be located in vacant land behind Kelly's Bar so it would not be central downtown. Pretty close though.
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