Applications are now being accepted for our 2017 workshop series. Now in its sixth year, our free technical assistance program has helped more than 50 communities grow in ways that benefit residents and businesses while protecting the environment and preserving a sense of place. Join us this Wednesday to learn how to apply If you are interested in learning more about these workshops or the application process, join us for a free webinar on Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at 1:00 PM EDT. Hear details about each workshop, and what we look for in successful applications.
We look forward to answering your questions on Wednesday.
Sincerely,
John Robert Smith, Senior Policy Advisor Smart Growth America
Applications are now being accepted for our 2017 workshop series. Applicants can apply for one of the nine free standardized technical assistance tools listed below. Click to learn more about each tool.
*In addition to our Complete Streets technical assistance, for the first time, three applicants can apply as a consortium for our new Complete Streets Consortium Series.Click here to learn more about this new service >>
Tool: (Re)Building Downtown Provider: Smart Growth America Summary: SGA’s (Re)Building Downtown workshops help communities create walkable development quickly and efficiently. We help local public officials clarify local challenges and identify strategies to do this; including improving regulations for land use, establishing clear public investment practices, and reforming administrative processes. We also work collaboratively to develop data-driven policy arguments to demonstrate the benefits of walkable downtown development.
Description: Recipients will receive one workshop that brings together elected officials (executive and legislative) and their senior staff, community leaders, downtown business owners developers, agency officials, planners, engineers, and legal experts in order to facilitate a dialogue on how to create a thriving downtown. Invitations to the workshop are sent to as wide of a cross-section of the community to ensure a diversity of perspectives and strong buy in for the action plan. As millennials seek out thriving, busy downtown spaces, communities across the country are working to create more exciting, inclusive spaces for their residents. This workshop will work with and create momentum among residents for a thriving downtown center. Over the course of the workshop, we will emphasize how a thriving downtown provides increased accessibility to resources, job opportunities, and boosts a community’s bottom line. The workshop will produce a discussion and next steps memo detailing development and redevelopment strategies and priorities, the pipeline of public works and capital projects, public engagement and outreach efforts, and the resources available and needed to support the downtown revitalization. SGA staff will assess critical success factors such as the mix of land uses, and will use these factors as well as input from the workshop to create recommendations for the recipient such as a target mix of housing, commercial and other uses that advance the goals for downtown revitalization
Arizona Incentives Lease Excise The Government Property Lease Excise Tax ("GPLET") has been established by the State of Arizona and is a redevelopment tool to initiate development by reducing a project's operating costs by replacing the real property tax with an excise tax. Under the state statute an excise tax is established for the building type of use and is calculated on the gross square footage of the building. The use of the excise tax cannot continue for more than twenty-five years and requires that the land and improvements conveyed to a government entity and leased back for private use. The excise tax rate can be abated for the first eight years after a certificate of occupancy on the building is issued if the property is located within a Central Business District and a Redevelopment
This page is a publication of information regarding property owned by government jurisdictions, but leased for commercial, residential rental or industrial purposes. The information displayed includes a PDF of the actual lease, abstract of lease and/or memorandum of lease, along with some identifying information. Once a list of leases is chosen, the information may be copied and pasted into a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel for use offline.
Published on 12 Sept 2016 Views: 1 Running time: 16:13
Yesterday's regular meeting starting at 5:45 was preceded by a brief "study session" at 5:15 to review the regular meeting's agenda
Regular Meeting [you are encouraged to watch it] - Nice award presentations noted by Councilmembers Dennis Kavanagh and David Luna [watch the video for details - Updates by City Manager Chris Brady about Mesa Royale were postponed to a later date since no one showed up to hear them ....that's not stopped the Mesa City Council from going ahead anyway - hardly any members of the public ever attend City Council meetings!
- More frequently than not, items that perhaps will most impact business owners and residents here in Mesa are placed at the end of items for action. Any interested person - and there do not appear to be many in a city with a population of over 450,000 persons] - might question the openness, transparency or accountability when there's little attention directed or the public given enough time to look at and understand, or ask questions - about things up for A PUBLIC HEARING, and the votes go down in about 10 minutes, most often unanimously without any comments or any discussion from the six City Councilmembers.
At this meeting two persons spoke in support of approving a designation of Blight in two Redevelopment Areas RDA - one in SW Mesa and one applied to increasing the boundaries of the Central Business District CBD Expansion. 1. Scott Jackson, who lives in Paradise Valley, principal partner of Verde Fiesta LLC, is one of the five owners in the Fiesta Corporate Center, with a vested interest 2. Christopher Nickerson, representing Banner Health/Cardona also spoke for approval - again with a vested interest. Notice how fast John Giles moves on Item 9
WHAT IS IT? It's the opinion promoted in a 24-page presentation of an RDA survey, finding and analysis done by a lending outfit in out-of-state Salt Lake City, Utah ZIONS PUBLIC FINANCE INC https://www.zionspf.com/overview/offices.php Now any reasonable citizen might ask Why is a finance entity in Utah interested in economic development and excise tax issues here in Mesa, Arizona?
A follow-up question can likewise get asked: Mayor John Giles stated numerous times that this ZPF opinion was discussed in City Council Study Sessions - like when? And was a link included on the session agendas for the public to view it? Your MesaZona blogger is purposefully not including a link - just to show you how easy or difficult it really is to access information.
Episode 02: Emily Hamilton on Land-Use Regulation and the Cost of Housing By Nolan Gray
Listen to the podcast >> here "When I was scheduling out the first few episodes of the Market Urbanism Podcast, it seemed natural to start with one of Market Urbanism’s favorite topics: the relationship between land-use regulation and rising housing costs in American cities. This week I sit down with Emily Hamilton, a regular Market Urbanism contributor and policy manager at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, to discuss a recent paper she coauthored with Sanford Ikeda, “How Land-Use Regulation Undermines Affordable Housing.”
The question I am left pondering: how can we convince homeowners—who have a large vested interest in the current system—to support land-use liberalization? Feel free to share your thoughts on this and other topics in today’s episode in the comment section below or with Emily and I on Twitter."
I am excited to announce that we are now on all major podcasting platforms: iTunes, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. If you like what you’re hearing, go ahead and click “subscribe” and leave a review on your favorite platform. If your preferred podcast platform is missing, let me know in the comments below.
How would you improve the podcast? Since my goal here is to provide nice content for the Market Urbanism community, I would like to hear your feedback on the show. Thanks for your patience as I familiarize myself with the technical side of podcasting and grow as an interview.
Who is a guest you would like to hear on the show? Let me know in the comment section below. If you prefer to keep your suggestion private, feel free to direct message me on Twitter.
As always, thanks for listening! We have a few exciting interviews lined up for the next two months. Stay tuned for the next episode on September 21st. ABOUT MARKET URBANISM:
The term “Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics, with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society. We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.
Over the next year, Nolan Gray will be talking to the scholars, writers, activists, and policymakers who are changing the conversation about cities. In biweekly conversations, a guest and Nolan will explore the past, present, and future of cities and the policies that shape them. If you’re totally new to the subject, fear not. He’ll begin conversations with the basics and clarify jargon as we move into a variety of fascinating, if complex, subjects. If you listen to the popular podcast Econtalk, you might have a general idea of what we’m going for. Of course, this won’t just be a one-way conversation. Each week, Nolan will post links and articles related to the conversation on marketurbanism.com/podcast, where you can share your thoughts and give feedback on the show.
. . . you can also tell Nolan how great a job he’s doing on Twitter at @mnolangray. We’ll also make an effort to share guest’s Twitter handle
Get to know the 2016 cohort of Flinn-Brown Fellows--introducing themselves and sharing their visions for civic leadership in Arizona. Visit http://www.azcivicleadership.org to learn more about the Fellows, the Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy, and the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.
The Arizona Center for Civic Leadership, administered by the Flinn Foundation, was launched in 2010 to strengthen civic leadership throughout Arizona. The Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy is sponsored in partnership with the Tucson-based Thomas R. Brown Foundations.
According to this source " the alarm was caused by a barrage of Fedspeak and the feared Fedspeak to come ahead of the September 21st pronouncement from the U.S. Federal Reserve on monetary policy. After the dust settled, financial markets still expressed disbelief in the September rate hike scenario. The odds for a hike in December surged from 51.4% to 59.2%. September has been a wild month already with rate hike expectations going from December on to December off/March on and now December on again as economic news and Fedspeak have crossed up markets.
DrDruru's best guess is that the Fed scheduled the current barrage of chatter to begin convincing markets that a rate hike is coming in December no matter what. The Fed will NOT hike rates in September against the market’s expectations. The renewal of excited media speculation over a September hike serves the Fed purpose to set up a long runway to a December hike. Imagine the (temporary) relief that will come after the Fed fails to hike rates in September while at the same time signals a near certain December hike: “yay – only one rate hike this year instead of two!”. That meeting will likely be yet another great opportunity to fade volatility.
