2023 February Commercial Development Minutes

MINUTES

Introductions

Approval of January Minutes – Jane Bucceri makes a motion to approve the minutes, Valerie makes second, minutes approved

Goals/Priorities/Incentives for 2023

Permit expedition with Housing Committee
- Permit taskforce
  - Carrie is working on getting someone from the Permit Office to come to next month’s meeting
  - Nicole Orr – talk to Patel or Jason Hessler
  - make sure the owner of the properties contact info is in the City’s e-file system so they are copied on all City responses to ensure the contractors, engineers, architects are being responsive
Business Roundtable
Business Highlights
CHAP Historic District lead in a more equitable way
Local lenders refusing to lend to Baltimore Street projects
- NIIF’s willing to come talk to the committee has threshold of $750,000 project
- BCL should come to the committee to explain their hesitancy to loan on W. Baltimore St
- Kurt – lenders are looking for scalability, find a way to tell the full story of the revitalization on W. Baltimore St, make a list of projects that are moving forward
- Rason – the way WBS is perceived is one of the reasons getting financing is hard, until the issues diminish it is high-risk and high exposure for any lender
- Kurt – how can we bring technical assistance resources to the area
- City’s Boost Program – is it just downtown? Carrie to follow up

Updates