Proposed Tax Incremental Financing for New Hotel Site +

Last week, the City Council received a request to hold special City Council and Finance Committee meetings on Wednesday, November 5, 2014. ('Special' because the Council would normally meet on 11/18/14 this month and the Finance Committee, later in the month.) The meetings are scheduled for 7:00 p.m. (City Council) and 7:30 p.m. (Finance Committee) at City Hall.

The special meeting was called so that the Council and Finance Committee would be able to hold readings of several important measures before the regular 11/18/14 meeting and then hold final votes on them on 11/18/14, for quick turnaround. The driver of this accelerated schedule is a proposed Tax Incremental Financing package for a hotel developer, to develop the site at 284 Elm Street for a 92-room, 54,000 square feet hotel. Any Tax Incremental Financing package must also be reviewed and approved by the Commonwealth and the committee that reviews these proposals only meets quarterly; this schedule is designed to get this to the committee before the end of 2014.

284 Elm Street Property

What is Tax Incremental Financing (TIF)? It is an economic development tool made available through the Commonwealth through which a locality such as Amesbury provides an economic incentive for a developer in the form of waived property taxes at a negotiated level for a negotiated period of time. Amesbury approved guidelines for using TIF as a development tool earlier this year.

The way it works is that the City can elect to waive property taxes collected on future increases in property value based on the desired development. For example, if a property generates $10,000 in property taxes in its current state but would generate $20,000 a year in taxes in its developed state, the City can waive some or all of that new $10,000/year in anticipated taxes, for a set period of time.

In this case, the Mayor is requesting that the City waive:

• 75% of the new (incremental) tax revenue for the first 5 years 
• 35% of the new tax revenue for the next 5 years

 

 In this particular case, the value of this TIF incentive (that is, the waived property taxes) is $802,500.

The rationale for offering the incentive in the first place (under the guidelines that we approved earlier this year) is that the proposed site itself offers constraints that add cost to any developer and make the project prohibitively expensive without the TIF incentive. The developer is required to use the tax savings essentially as self-financing for part of the project (proposed at around $10 million total). Here are the numbers (as legibly as I could cut/paste them from the proposal):

You can read the entire TIF package HERE. This is Amesbury's first TIF and likely out only 'bite' at creating an incentive for this property, so it is important for us to get it right. The City is 'investing' over $800K in waived taxes but some short-term and a good bit of long-term gain in new tax revenue from the property.

The OTHER significant item in front of the City Council at this special meeting on 11/5/14 is the authorization for the City of Amesbury to purchase 116 Whitehall Road for $400,000. View the property HERE.  This is land currently zoned for 61a agricultural use and as such, the City has the 'right of first refusal' when the property is up for sale. This request from Mayor Gray is to exercise that right and purchase the land, presumably as open space. As one can see from a map view of the property, this open space links the north side of Woodsom Farm over the ridge down to Whitehall Road, offering the potential to expand the size of and access to the Woodsom Farm property.

You can read this request HERE.

I encourage anyone interested in either of these items to attend tomorrow's 11/5/14 City Council and Finance Committee meetings.

Waste Management Landfill and Potential Large Solar Array

I was at a Planning Board meeting tonight with my colleague Anne Ferguson (At-Large). Though we were there for another issue, we were both interested in hearing a 'Pre-Hearing Conference' presentation by a company working with Waste Management to propose the development of a large solar array for the capped landfill off of South Hunt Road.

Under the Patrick administration, the Commonwealth has promoted a number of means for promoting large and small scale solar energy production. The project discussed tonight would come under an initiative to develop solar arrays on capped and closed landfills, such as this one. You can read more about this HERE.

Here is a photo of the proposed solar array site:

Photo of Map from 10/27/14 Planning Board Meeting

(I apologize for the quality of the image; it is a phone photo of a large handout.)(Does this location look familiar?)

The road across the top is South Hunt Road. The development in the lower right is part of Bartlett's Reach, off of Pleasant Valley Road. And the development on the right side of the image is Merrimack Landing. The capped landfill is the large tan blob in the middle of the image and the gray/blue area inside that is the proposed footprint of the solar array, taking up a substantial part of the landfill.

The capped landfill itself has a bit of elevation to it and the array would take advantage of the elevation to capture solar energy. You can see the same location HERE (Google Earth) and HERE (Open Street Map), for good perspective.

This is all exciting news. This would enable Waste Management to put this inactive landfill property into a productive use, it would add to the Commonwealth's overall production of renewable energy (and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for power generation), and it would add taxable value to the property (boosting Amesbury's non-residential tax base). There are, as you would imagine with a closed waste site, a number of hoops to jump through, both state and local. But MA DEP has permitted over 40 solar array projects on landfills to date, so has developed capacity to review and approve such projects. If this comes to fruition, it will be a strong complement to Amesbury's recent achievements as a Green Community.

Amesbury Sports Park - Update

Folks have been wondering what is next in the Amesbury Sports Park story, ever since the City of Amesbury's Conservation Agent John Lopez exercised his authority under the Commonwealth's Wetlands Protections Act by putting a 'Cease and Desist' order on Amesbury Land Associates (the folks who own and run the Sports Park) on August 29, 2014.

I can't say much about the condition of the business or the oft-asked question: what's happening with the October 2014 Brewfest that was scheduled to take place there.  I can say that the City of Amesbury's actions were limited to stopping the Sports Park from the running of so-called OCR (Obstacle Course Race) and any other events through wetland and wetland buffer zones in the City of Amesbury.  This effectively meant the cancellation of several OCR events planned for this year.  Such events do NOT represent the entirety of the Sports Park's business.  The City's action only was against any such race on an affected property and not against all Sports Park business operations.

Tonight (Monday 9/15/14), the Amesbury Conservation Commission took two important actions against Amesbury Land Associates.

First, it formally 'ratified' the 8;29 Cease & Desist Order (HERE).  The language of the order was as follows:

This Amended Enforcement Order is being issued as a follow up to the original Order issued on 8/29/2014 for unauthorized activities within Bordering Vegetated Wetlands (BVW), Bank and the 100' Buffer Zone without permits from Amesbury Conservation Commission (ACC), which consisted of the creation of an approximate 4-mile hiking trail of various widths through wetland resource areas and Buffer Zone that significantly altered wetland vegetation, and exposed and destabilized soils; excavation of a 30' x 10' x 5’ trench (approximate) and a smaller, partially excavated trench within BVW, and the placement of tree limbs across intermittent streams and BVW for the purpose of supporting foot traffic. These violations were made pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act (MGL Chapter 131, s. 40) and its regulations (310 CMR 10.00), as well as the City of Amesbury Wetlands Ordinance and its regulations. The majority of violations took place on city-owned and private property without permission. Therefore, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist all activities within jurisdictional wetland resource areas and Buffer Zone. See additional directives in Attachment to Amended Enforcement Order pertaining to restoration of activities and deadline dates.

 Second, it approved an enforcement amendment (HERE) to this Order that ordered Amesbury Land Associates to:

• Hire a wetlands scientist to conduct a damage survey on all affected public and private properties, using a geo-map of the August 9 Spartan Race course.
• Based on the survey and assessment, develop a mitigation plan for presentation to the Con Comm at their November 2014 meeting.  Specifically, "[t]hese observations shall be detailed in a report and be photo-documented. This report must include proposed restoration activities in an effort to restore the resource areas to its original condition."

 This is all, as it should be, limited to damage from the Spartan Race held on August 8 and 9.  To give you a sense of how extensive the Sports Park's practice of mis-using these properties has been, here's a run-down of the OCR events hosted by the Sports Park just in 2014 and 2013:

2013 SuperHero Scramble - Happily scrambling through some very wet wetland (Source: http://relentlessforwardcommotion.com/2013/06/2013-new-england-superhero-scramble-charger-review-recap/)

5/4/13 - Renegade Playground

2013 SuperHero Scramble - Stream(?) Crossing

6/8/13 - Superhero Challenge

6/29/13 - New England Civilian Military Combine (CMC)

7/13/13 - Dirty Girl Mud Run

8/10-11/13- Spartan Race

5/17/14 - MUD Match 2014

5/31/14 - Warrior Dash

6/7/14 - Superhero Scramble

6/21/13 - New England Civilian Military Combine (CMC)

7/26/14 - Dirty Dash

8/9-10/14 - Spartan Race

9/6/14 - Muddrella Race (cancelled)

10/11/14 - OutFit Challenge (cancelled)

10/18/14 - Zombie Run (cancelled)

5 last year, 9 this year, all with approximately the same course.

With the Conservation Commission addressing the wetlands violations (and the private landowners sorting out any trespassing violations), my concerns turn towards the fact that these races were held with such impunity.  The City does have something of an event permission process in place, but it is mainly geared towards the recreational use of Town Parks for things such as sports leagues and competitions.  It is not geared towards events held on private property or outside of Town Parks.  Whatever process we have in place currently, it clearly is not adequate, since it has allowed tens of thousands to race through Town Conservation land, capped landfill, and Superfund properties for some time without proper controls.  The Sports Park has at least coordinated with our Police Department on traffic plans related to these events, so there was some City awareness but that didn't translate into additional oversight.  And a resident of Amesbury had brought these very same land use concerns to the City after the May 2014 Warrior Dash and before the August Spartan Race, without result.  So, somehow, we've been missing the link from the thousands coming into Town for these events and these land use problems.

Last week, I requested from the Mayor copies of any paperwork submitted by the Sports Park for any of the events listed above.  I have not yet heard back regarding what the City may or may not have on file. UPDATE 9/16/14: I heard back from the Mayor's office and an ongoing search has not turned up paperwork for 2013 and 2014 OCR events hosted by the Sports Park.

To address the problem of having only modest or little oversight of large scale events in Amesbury, I've drafted and submitted a Special Event Permit Process ordinance, for first reading at the September City Council meeting, with Councilors Lavoie and Ferguson as co-sponsors.  It sets broad standards in place for what kinds of events will require a special permit and the conditions which any permit application must meet before being approved.  You can read the proposed ordinance HERE. 

I'm looking forward to getting input from the City, my fellow Councilors, and from the business community about how we can do a better job of overseeing these and other public events.

Amesbury Spartan Race 2014 - Comments and Questions

On August 9-10, 2014, the Amesbury Sports Park hosted a return of the Spartan Race series to Amesbury.  The Spartan Race is one among a number of very popular 'challenge'-type athletic events, where participants climb over and under obstacles, navigate hazards, carry or drag weights and objects, wade through mud pits - you get the picture.

On August 12, I walked some of the course that the Spartan Race used in Amesbury, as part of an ongoing project of citizen-mapping trails by the new Amesbury Trails group that go through various City-owned conservation and park land.  In addition to GPS-enabled devices that could track trail data to overlay later with maps, we had data downloaded from the internet of a Spartan Race participant's own GPS file.  Our primary objective was to explore and map the City-owned Merrimack Landing Conservation property that abuts Riverfront Drive to the South and various properties along South Hunt Road (including the Amesbury Sports Park) to the North.  But our secondary objective was to see if there had been any damage from the recent Spartan Race, run just days before.  My companion had seen possible damage from the Warrior Dash Race held earlier this year and he was worried that the Spartan Race may have gone through the same areas.

Here's the GPS data file overlaid a map indicating the properties that the 2014 Spartan Race ran through.  A layman can see that the Race went through sensitive areas, including a Superfund site, a capped landfill, and private and public conservation land.

We very quickly found indications that there may have been some serious impacts from the Spartan Race (the weekend Spartan Race posted results for at least 6,500 participants).  We took a number of geo-tagged pictures and decided that this information needed to be reported to the City as soon as possible.  The Conservation Commission has authority over any wetlands use violations on public and private property, the Con Comm is also the managing authority of record on the Merrimack Landing Conservation Land deed, and we were worried about the use of closed landfill property for a mass event.  Here are some of the pictures that I sent to the City, taken on City-owned Conservation Land.

The first two photos show a very wide path of churned mud cut straight through what appeared to be a wetland or at least a wetland buffer zone.  The third shows extensive trail damage from runners and tracks from a motorized vehicle (the Merrimack Landing Conservation Land deed explicitly prohibits the use of motorized vehicles on this property).

I'm not a conservation lawyer but I know enough about the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act and its implementation in Amesbury's own Wetlands Protection bylaw that alarm bells were ringing in our heads.  At that point, we didn't know if there were also trespassing and land use violations with the course having gone through other private property (including property controlled by Waste Management, Inc.), though it was very hard to believe that they would have allowed thousands of runners to climb their capped landfill or dig mud pits and build obstacles on Superfund land. (What's Superfund?  Read more HERE.)  

Making no assumptions, however, I sent a number of the photos that I took that morning, along with the created map of the course, to folks at the City, in the Economic and Community Development Department, since that is where the City's Conservation Agent resides (oversees Wetlands Act enforcement, in concert with the Amesbury Conservation Commission).  I also submitted queries about whether or not the City had issued permits for this event on this course and what, exactly, the City's event permitting process was.

I was informed that the City had received my complaint related to the Wetlands Protection Act and that it was following up on it, including contacting the MA Department of Environmental Protection (MA DEP, ultimately responsible for enforcement of the Act).  As reported in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune today [LINK to story], a follow-up investigation was conducted by the DEP and by the City and that they have determined that there were violations and an enforcement process has been initiated.  

The story also reports that the City will not allow the Sports Park to hold the Mudderella Race scheduled for next weekend.

I am heartened that the complaint has elicited such a strong response.  

Here are my concerns and questions, which I had upon walking the course and that have only intensified in thinking more about it all:

• This is not the first time that such challenge/obstacle races have been held in Amesbury (not just hosted by the Sports Park).  What process does the City have in place to comprehensively review and permit large events (held on both public and private property)? And, if we do have one, does it comprehensively manage risk to participants and the City by requiring a comprehensive review? I know that some of the organizers of previous events have worked closely with the City and folks like the Conservation Commission and public safety departments to design and execute safe and compliant events, so it can be done right.  
• But some of the same routes through Merrimack Landing Conservation Land property have been used at least by another Sports Park race earlier this year and, likely, in the past, as well.  So, are we talking about one bad actor here or is the question one of not having a robust enough event permitting system in place in Amesbury, so that we can best prevent rather than respond to problems in event designs before they occur?  I'm guessing the latter.  It is definitely the case that we have no ordinance in place the requires event permits, described conditions and requirements, and lays out a schedule of penalties for non-compliance (that would come in handy about right now).
• You can find a 2 page event form HERE that is definitely in the right direction (multiple department head sign offs, etc), but it is directed to the Youth Services Director and primarily has to do with holding events in City sports fields and facilities.  The current event form and the related regulations don't, in my mind, fully address the many public interests in regulating and permitting events that are held beyond sports field and public facilities (such as Camp Kent or Lake Gardener). I think that we are due for an upgrade in our event permitting process.
• I checked with Chief Oullette of the Amesbury Police Department about this event.  He was aware of it and the Sports Park had contacted his office with a traffic plan designed to mitigate problems from past mass events.  This is why for the Spartan Race, everyone parked at the greyhound track in Seabrook NH and and they were bussed down and back (great idea, by the way; there had been some real traffic control nightmares for some of these events at the Sports Park previously). Were other department heads or the Mayor's office aware of the event, its course and the fact that temporary climbing structures were being assembled? I assume that some folks were aware of the event on some level (you don't just sneak 7,000 people into town) but I also fear that no one had particular or clearly delineated responsibility for reviewing the various land use questions involved. This is not the first obstacle event put on by the Sports Park this year (including one that also likely had trespassing and wetlands violations) and there are/were three more coming up on their calendar before the end of the year!  What eyeballs are on these events as they roll through town and how are they vetted by the City?

From my end, I've reached out to the Mayor indicating my concerns with our current process and indicating my interest in working with his office to improve it.  I haven't heard back from him yet so I'll be filing a proposed event permitting ordinance for our upcoming September City Council Meeting. I look forward to working with the Mayor, my colleagues on the City Council other stakeholders (such as the Chamber of Commerce) to develop this ordinance. 

My take-aways from this are: we have a system for permitting events in place that clearly has some weaknesses, that the Spartan Race may have been a 'wake up call' but it does not appear to be an isolated event, and that we can protect Amesbury's interests better with a more robust event permit management system in place.