- WRA and the old church on Summer Street
- City Square editorial
- South Worcester Industrial Park editorial
Couple all of these stories with the 1.25 million which includes a $700,000 loan that City needs to invest in Union Station, the Hanover Theatre and the myriad of stories about the various CDC's in the City of Worcester that we read each month. What do all of these development stories have in common? The involvement of the City of Worcester.
I am not saying any of these projects in and of themselves are bad, but what the City of Worcester is missing right now is true private dollars being invested in the City of Worcester, other then the hospitals or colleges. How can we spur private development? Versus hiring a consultant we should merely copy what other cities have done to spur private development; for example, Philadelphia.
A friend of mine from college lives there and has told me about how everyone was moving out of Philadelphia. About ten years ago the City of Philadelphia targeted an area for residential development by locking in the assessed value for ten years for anyone who developed residential property. It has been a huge success, check out this New York Times story.
In the City of Worcester we should target areas and buildings, specifically abandoned buildings which pose numerous hazards and offer, for commercial development by offering:
- 10 year freeze on assessed values
- waiving of all permitting fees including water and sewer connections
In essence this is exactly what we did for the Hanover Theatre.
4 comments:
we already waive water & sewer permit fees (and other fees) for any non profit that asks ....it's basically ask and they shall receive .......problem is though.......non profits are getting their water & sewer fees waived (and maybe others fees, too)...........BUT.......they aint being waived by those who are supposed to be waiving them....i.e. the council and manager....for shame
all this from a council that weeps and moans about non profits who are not paying their share....I mean WTH.......how many sides of their collective mouths can they speak out of?
But hey they even waived the water and sewer fees for Central St Hotel....wonder how that gal made out up on Grafton st...wanted to open a laundramat.....but needed a gazillion $$$ for sewer hook up fees......
What reallly hurts about all these fees is that city ordinances allow (via authority granted by council) UNELECTED Officials to raise these fees.......that way when someone complians........the coucil just says .......hey we didnt raise the fee....... Trebor from the Fee Raising Dept did it....not us.......of course the council always nudges Trebor to raise the fees when ever we need more money............then poor Trebor has to take all the heat from the PO'ed citizenry......the fee raising dept has a a bad habit though.....every time they raise some fees...they double doubled.....
File Under:
Fee-axation Without Representation is Tyranny
Anyone ever wonder if all that money raised for sewer fees actually makes it way to the sewer system for capital inprovement/upgrades?? Afterall council sees a pile of cash accumulating......they wanna get their hands on it for pet projects.........See What Mr Moylan tells WOMAG after an easy winter and there's money leftover in the snow account.......they wanna spend it
Afterall keeping a sewer system operarting properly aint really something that a Pol can tout as an accomplishment come elections time....i mean WTH evers sees or even thinks about the sewer system.....it's taken for granted.... N
Now if I am pol and biuld ( or re build) a canal...........now thats something that i can point to and see.........see what I did !!!!!..........I built us another piece of bueatiful infrastructure a new park. I am beginng to think that maybe sewer fess may become Canal Money....after all teh bLackstone is just a sewer anyway??
Meanwhile cooler heads think how the hell are we going to care for and maintian this canal when we cant care for wehat we got now?
Jahn:
I agree with you when you say all the non-profits have their fees waived and it is not right. That is why I want to level the playing field.
Why should a private developer, like Berkeley, need to pay all the fees, but Hanover has all their fees waived. It has to be one way of the other.
Right now in an real estate downturn, I feel it need to be waived across the board to entice development of certain areas or buildings, but not just limit it to non-profits.
Please note the colleges do not have their fees waived. I was specifically talking about the CDC's and now the Hanover Theatre about the waiving of fees.
I see the blog is sponsoring the Eclipse 500 jet out of Worcester.
Great to hear there is still general aviation business based in Worcester.
Keep up the good work
john
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