GREENFIELD — Developers coming to Hancock County should be prepared to answer tough questions and open their wallets, the county government is signaling.
At its next meeting, the county’s budget committee will discuss possible changes to its tax abatement process that could be more selective and require more from prospective developers.
“Our abatement process is really something that we are beginning to take a closer look at,” county council member Jeannine Gray said. “It might be a great idea to take a short moratorium.”
The budget committee, which is scheduled to meet at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 1, consists of all the members of both the county council and board of commissioners. Members of both bodies have expressed worries about the pace of the county’s industrial development.
Council member Mary Noe said she thinks a new process for evaluating assessments will benefit the county.
“It will give us an opportunity to be a little better prepared to hear requests,” she said.
The county council recently asked developer GDI Construction if it would be willing to voluntarily build to higher standards for avoiding light pollution than required by the county’s code and meet with residents in the area about their concerns, which a representative from the company said they would be glad to do. GDI is considering a speculative development near the intersection of Mt. Comfort Road and County Road 400W.
“I do feel like we’re making a lot of progress so that going forward, abatements will be considered based on more factors,” council member Keely Butrum said.
Butrum said solutions the county could consider could include PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes) or other potential structures that would allow companies to make required annual payments to schools, fire departments and police. She said the council also talked about asking developers to commit to giving more money if the property they’re developing is a speculative building, which doesn’t come with the same guarantee of job creation and other benefits.
She also noted that the county already has the ability to revoke tax abatements if a company is not complying with the terms of its agreement, but noted that it is hard to secure these payments if a company is going out of business, which is one of the major reasons it might leave the county before the term of its abatement is up.
Gray noted that drivers can’t pass through most areas of Hancock County without seeing “we’re hiring” signs posted by the many employers that are currently short on workers. When considering a tax abatement, meant primarily as an incentive to bring more jobs to the area, she said the council should consider the type of job and the pay that will be offered more than the raw number of jobs.
“We certainly don’t need a bunch of vacant buildings because we don’t have the workplace for them,” she said.
Although the county council does not have authority over rezoning, Noe said her preference would be to see no further land rezoned as industrial north of County Road 500N until the county’s upcoming new comprehensive plan is finished.
The comprehensive planning process was begun in June and is slated to take about 18 months. The county’s comprehensive plan was last updated in 2012.
Butrum also called for a halt to rezoning land as industrial at a recent town hall event, where commissioners John Jessup and Bill Spalding said they would not support a full halt to industrial rezoning but that the commissioners are slowing down and taking a closer look at such requests.
Industrial zoning is a specific category that accommodates mostly large buildings such as manufacturing facilities and warehouses. Other businesses such as restaurants or strip retail would be built on land zoned as commercial.
Decisions about zoning are made by the board of commissioners, with recommendations from the county’s plan commission.
Council member Jim Shelby said tax abatements have an important place in promoting economic growth, but the county is in a position to be selective about what tax abatements it wants to offer. He proposed that the county set aside a specific area for industrial developments and press pause on industrial development in other areas.
Council president Bill Bolander said he agrees it is worth looking into PILOTs and other mechanisms that could capture more tax dollars for schools and public safety, but doesn’t agree with the idea of halting abatements or rezoning for all or part of the county.
“I think it would be a bad idea just to cut growth off,” he said.
Bolander said that workers will likely come from outside the county to fill the jobs at new developments if there are not enough local workers.
Some of the concerns about industrial development, Bolander said, stem from misunderstandings. He said there are not speculative buildings standing empty, and that there are extensive plans in place for road repairs and improvements.
“So many people don’t understand abatements,” he said.
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If you’re following the county’s debate over the growth of industrial development, certain terms are likely to come up over and over again. Here’s what a few of most common mean.
Tax abatement: Governments offer a tax abatement to fully or partially exempt a company from paying taxes in order to attract them to the area, with the aim of creating jobs and economic growth. Most abatements offered in Hancock County have a ten-year term in which the company pays no taxes in its first year, 10% of assessed value in the second year, 20% in the third year, and so on.
PILOTs: “Payments of lieu of taxes” are made voluntarily by entities that have received a tax abatements, usually for a smaller amount than the taxes they would otherwise have paid, and can be directed toward a specific purpose.
Comprehensive plan: A comprehensive plan is a document that consists of a series of recommendations for a community that can be used as a guide for local leaders on how to make decisions in coming years. It will generally include proposed plans for road repairs and infrastructure improvements, suggestions for where future development of houses and businesses should be located, and more.
Industrial zoning: A zoning category is the designation given to a piece of land by the local government that places restrictions on how it can be used. In order to build on a piece of land, developers of large warehouses or manufacturing plants often need to appeal to the government to zone it as industrial.
TIF district: A tax-increment financing district operates similarly to a tax abatement but is a designation placed on an area of land instead of a company. Any business that opens in a designated TIF district pays a lower amount of taxes for a set period of time, and the revenue goes toward improvements that are meant to attract more development, like road upgrades.
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