City reviewing business support plans
By COLLIN GALLANT on November 29, 2019.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant City Hall’s economic developers are doing a complete review of what Medicine Hat offers in terms of business support and will present a new comprehensive program to council in the new year. The statement comes one day after Alberta’s municipal affairs minister announced the government plans to expand property tax exemptions that all cities and counties can offer new and existing business. A new bill would mirror legislation for general property taxes passed this summer, and allow local governments to discount machinery and equipment taxes charged on major facilities. Medicine Hat doesn’t apply the levy, meaning it could adjust it down to entice companies, but others could. That could diminish the advantage of investing inside city limits, officials stated on Thursday. As well, said city economic development manager Grant MacKay, considering the number of changes in provincial investment attraction during the first year of the UCP government, a major revamping of local programs should be done. “The overall competitive landscape may begin to shift across Alberta,” said MacKay. “Various municipalities (will) consider and begin to implement their own tax exemption initiatives as they look to position themselves to investors as competitive and open for business ” “The City of Medicine Hat is no different and is already looking at various development incentive program possibilities moving forward as a result of changes to legislation enacted over the past year or so.” This fall the city launched the “Business Retention and Expansion Workforce Development (BREWD)” strategy with a wide survey of business owners. That data plus an examination of provincial efforts will be done. A new plan of action and policies on the incentives could be before council in early 2020, said MacKay. Current efforts include the city’s downtown development incentive grants, HatSmart and offsetting reclamation costs in brownfield with property tax discounts. As well, the offer to lower profit margins on utility sales for projects that meet certain criteria, such as jobs or utility use, and like all cities in Alberta, can offer general property tax breaks of up to 15 years to woo new business investment. This summer the city took advantage of a brownfield property tax incentive to complete conditional deals to sell the Medicine Hat Arena and the parking lot at 603 First St. to private developers. The move also comes after a reorganization of economic development efforts. In August, the city announced it would revamp its economic development strategy by bringing contracted service in house. Combined with the city’s land development and business support office, it is now known as the Economic Development and Land department, and is under the direct control of CAO Bob Nicolay. He promised to continue the work done by contracted provider Invest Medicine Hat, and create a “seamless” program that would include utility, land, planning and other departments related to development. This week, the municipal affairs minister announced new legislation would allow cites that charge against the machinery assessment to offer discounts for both new and existing plants for up to 15 years. The Alberta Chambers of commerce lauded the move, with president Ken Kobly stating “flexibility to offer machinery and equipment tax incentives will help communities attract investment and support local job creation.” However, machinery and equipment charges are not universally applied across the province. Medicine Hat doesn’t charge the assessment, meaning plants located here only pay tax on their office space. A survey of mill rate bylaws posted with Municipal Affairs, show most major cities do not apply the levy, though rural areas and larger municipalities with major industrial sectors do. 21-20
