City council maps 2011 agenda

Throughout 2010, the Bloomington City Council had to tackle problems with road construction, business sustainability and financial strains during a poor
economy.

Now the council is preparing to face similar challenges in 2011.

Members of the council met on Jan. 5 to discuss the coming year.

The first item on the council’s agenda is a re-evaluation of the city’s tax abatement policies, which haven’t been changed since 1993.

“Tax abatements are tools that can be used to help incentivize business development,” said Susan Sandberg, newly elected city council president.

Abatements exempt businesses from taxes on new projects in the community, according to the State of Indiana’s website. Generally, cities award them to businesses that will somehow benefit the community beyond job creation, such as environmental benefits.

Since 1993, the State of Indiana has made changes to its tax abatement regulations for cities. Some of Bloomington’s rules have changed as well, said Danise Alano Martin, director of Economic and Sustainable Development for the City of
Bloomington.

“For each project, we’ve had to waive certain things,” Alano Martin said. “There was something in the code that referred to a certain geographic area in the city’s planning documents that doesn’t exist anymore.”

More importantly, the tax abatement policies should reflect the city’s overall goals of developing the community, Martin said.

Martin said her department is focusing on those projects that are environmentally sustainable or contribute to affordable housing within the city, among other things.

Since 2006, no business has applied for and received a tax abatement from the city.

“Hopefully, with the economy turning around, people will be more able to find funding for projects,” Martin said.

Sandberg echoed Martin’s statement, saying that job creation is always something the city council is interested in promoting.

The legislation was first read at the Jan. 5 meeting and will be voted on in the coming weeks.

The other early legislative issue on the horizon for the city council is a traffic ordinance that would address changes discussed in 2010, including those related to stoplight locations and some one-way streets, Sandberg said.

Because this legislation has not been finalized, the city legal department was uncomfortable discussing the specific changes it could make.

Many of the topics the city council will address this year are still unknown.

“Every legislative cycle brings new things,” Sandberg said. “A lot of what we’re doing is dealing with legislation not originated by us. A lot of it is housecleaning.”