FELLSMERE – Fellsmere city leaders are moving forward with plans to designate most of the city a “brownfield” area in an attempt to spark redevelopment and job growth. They also are discussing tying tax breaks to the special zone to keep the state from telling the city what incentives can be offered.
“We don’t want to surprise anybody,” Fellsmere City Manager Jason Nunemaker said at a recent council meeting. Members of the city’s staff have approached the three large landowners to notify them about the city’s plans. Brownfield areas are designated zones that contain properties that have actual or perceived pollution. The designation allows property owners to request financial assistance in cleaning up the pollution and promote its redevelopment.
Nunemaker said he plans to have workshops and community meetings to discuss the proposals with the citizens in hopes of avoiding the pushback county officials received from their residents earlier this year.
Property owners near the former Ocean Spray factory off Oslo Road near the main landfill voiced strong opposition to having their land placed in a brownfield zone, saying that such a designation would negatively impact their property values and attaches a stigma of pollution to their land.
“I think we can avoid that,” Nunemaker said.
The city is proposing to designate all non-residential property part of the brownfield area. The only benefits residential property get as part of a brownfield are contaminate cleanup assistance and liability protection. If residents were to find pollution on their properties, they could ask to be added to the city’s brownfield zone or work directly with the state for help.
Along with pushing forward with the brownfield designation, city leaders are proposing that they offer tax abatements to businesses moving into the brownfield area. By tying the two together, the city – not the state – can set the qualifications and rules for the abatements.
The city’s residents would have to vote in favor of the tax abatement program before it could go into effect. Fellsmere leaders plan to put the question to a vote come November.
Qualifying businesses would be allowed to freeze their property tax by a certain percentage for a period of time depending on how many jobs and how high the wage they would be creating.
City staff has created a draft scoring matrix that would help city leaders determine the amount of property tax freeze businesses would be allowed to have.
The maximum abatement – for a business bringing in nine or more $50,000-plus salary jobs in a “value-added” industry – would be 100 percent property tax freeze for 10 years. That means the property tax the business is paying now would be same tax bill it would receive for the next 10 years, regardless of the improvements and expansion done on the site. After that, the business would pay the “real” property tax assessed on the site.
The Fellsmere City Council did not take a vote on the proposals but did give a consensus to move forward with the plans.