Consideration and Adoption of Resolution No. 2015-02:  A resolution of the Mayor and Council of the City of Flagstaff, Arizona adopting the Community Reinvestment Plan (Community Reinvestment Plan)

The Community Reinvestment Plan presents an over-arching Community Reinvestment Policy as well as objectives and potential actions to implement the policy.  The development of the plan involved talking to our customers, research of how other communities have approached this policy goal, a preliminary analysis (current activities, obvious fatal legal challenges, and potential effectiveness), discussion with all affected City Divisions and Sections, and discussion with the City Council over the course of four years.

The adoption of this plan establishes the Community Reinvestment Policy as a formal policy of the City.  While the objectives and possible implementation strategies included in the plan have survived the preliminary cut and merit further development, they remain “possibilities” that can be further evaluated and further shaped, including deletions, additions, and editing.  A notable amount of work remains in developing the remaining possibilities.  Staff will need to prepare specific actions, ordinances and other mechanisms, for future City Council consideration and possible adoption.  The adoption of this plan thus provides direction to staff to include this work in their future budgeting and work programs.

Just developing the implementation strategies has cost implications including staff time, or hiring consultants or additional staff. Other projects could experience delay as staff develops these strategies.  More notably, the implementation strategies themselves have more significant costs associated with them.  And, the more effective strategies have higher costs.  Funding allocations by the City Council are necessary to develop the options and more will again be necessary in the future for implementation.

 

COUNCIL GOALS:
7) Address key issues and processes related to the implementation of the Regional Plan

REGIONAL PLAN:
The Flagstaff Regional Plan 2030 includes a series of goals and policies that support community reinvestment as an objective and course of action to achieve the goals and policies of the Plan. These include less direct goals such as preserving resources and open spaces, efficient infrastructure, energy efficiency, urban land-uses and development patterns, and multimodal commuting. However, the Plan also directly calls for compact development, investing in existing neighborhoods and urban areas, adaptive re-use, historic preservation, and promoting infill and redevelopment.

At a Regular Meeting on January 6, 2015, the City Council provided the most recent direction that serves as the basis of this draft of the Community Reinvestment Policy.  Per the direction provided, there have been no changes to the plan except that the previously deleted annotations have been modified to better fit the purpose and added back into the document.  And, the "Empty Building Tax" (a possible implementation strategy) has been removed.

1)  Adopt Plan.
2)  Do not adopt plan and provide staff with direction for continued development of the plan.
3)  Do not adopt plan.

In 2010 at the direction of the City Council, the Community Design and Redevelopment Program initiated a community discussion about redevelopment and infill.  The concept of "redevelopment and infill" was later expanded to "reinvestment" to be more inclusive of different types of redevelopment and to avoid cultural and legal connotations of the word "redevelopment".  The City Council sought ways to motivate developers to reinvest in developed areas instead of investing in green fields.  This process included City customers and internal stakeholders and identified areas where our current policies and codes were unfavorable to reinvestment.

The next step involved researching how other communities have addressed this same concern.  This was extensive research of municipal, county, state, and Federal efforts nationwide.  This generated a "raw data" collection of ideas that did not evaluate success, legality, cost, or any other factors - simply identifying "What has been tried?"  This list was then taken back out to the stakeholders for discussion.  (In bullet form, the list is included in the October 2013 Staff Memo to the City Council.)  These discussions allowed us to separate out the ideas into "could be done" (Green boxes on the list), those with "fatal flaws" (Red boxes), and those that required City Council direction (Yellow boxes).

In October of 2013, the items that required preliminary City Council direction were brought to a Work Session and discussed.  The City Council provided direction that was then used to develop a Draft Community Reinvestment Plan.  City staff then considered this complete list (green, yellow, and red) but also "thinned" list of ideas and further refined the plan for City Council consideration.  The final draft was presented to the City Council in a work Session in November of 2014.  The City Council had no changes or discussion that warranted changes.  Presented for adoption on January 6, 2015, the City Council expressed a desire for the explanatory annotations of previous drafts to be placed back into the document and for the "Empty Building Tax" concept to be deleted.  This final draft reflects those changes.

1. See "Financial Impact"

2.  At the January 6, 2015 presentation, the City Council had discussed having the annotations as an appendix.  In looking at how to best communicate, and noting that the document is "a plan", staff believes that including the annotations in the plan is most clear and effective communication.  The document has thus been prepared in that fashion - with the annotations included with it instead of as an appendix.

Detailed cost expectations can be provided as implementation strategies are brought before the City Council for consideration.

Elimination of blight:  A deteriorating area results in a negative image that affects economic vitality elsewhere in the community.  This impacts not only tourism but also business attraction, retention, and expansion.

Prevention of urban sprawl.

Creation of new sources of tax revenue:  Deteriorating areas cannot pay their own way and reinvestment puts non-producing or under-producing properties back on the tax rolls.

Not only does reinvestment provide retail in underserved areas, it also provides neighborhood jobs, thus reducing personal and municipal costs of commuting.

Reduction of pollution/environmental contamination:  The re-use of buildings and infrastructure reduces landfill, consumption of raw materials, and the transportation costs associated with hauling out the old and hauling in the new.

Import substitution:  A central strategy in building a sustainable local economy is import substitution – creating locally what otherwise would have to be purchased elsewhere. Almost by definition reinvestment is locally based, using expertise, labor, and materials from the local market. Often new construction is the opposite, requiring the importation of expertise, materials, and often labor from elsewhere.

Cultural preservation:  Our sense of place, identity, evolution, ownership, and community.  These are referred to as the Five Senses of Quality Communities and will, in the intermediate and long term, have considerable impact on the economic health of individual communities. 

All of these benefits provide the citizens of Flagstaff with an improved quality of life. 

Collaborate - See "Background" section above.
 

 

1.  Adopt Plan.
2.  Do not adopt plan and provide staff with direction for continued development of the plan.  This option would allow the City Council to add or delete any materials or concepts that are or are not desired.
3.  Do not adopt plan.  This option would not provide any different policy for reinvestment than currently exists.