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Tuesday, 24 October 2006 17:08 |
By DAVID FORBES
The City of Asheville is considering a wide range of economic development strategies, including land grants, fee waiver, working with nonprofits and better marketing for a "toolbox" aimed at encouraging a healthier economy in the area, as the city council discussed the plans on Oct. 17.
"What weëre trying to do is make these tools available in our community, so that when people come here, they know what weëre offering," Councilwoman Robin Cape said.
However, there was debate on whether those tools will be effective ÇƒÓ or if they need to be combined into a larger development plan.
Councilman
Carl Mumpower criticized the presented plan, asserting that it leaves
out core economic issues ÇƒÓ like infrastructure and encouraging buisness
development.
"I see very
little of this directed at those primary tools," Mumpower said. "I see
a lot of secondary stuff which, for the most part, has us giving
something to someone else. There may be some value to some of that, but
weëve got to look at the primary issues seriously."
Meanwhile, Mayor
Terry Bellamy noted that the current economic development plans are
very preliminary ÇƒÓ intended more to establish some useful tools than to
be a comprehensive plan, though these elements would be incorporated
into such a plan.
"What we want to
see, going forward with this, is benchmarks," Bellamy said. "We want to
make it clear we can measure this. When this is brought back to us
again, itës not going to be what we see here today. Itës going to have
some meat on it, some skin."
Councilman Jan Davis responded that the tools proposed were not originally intended to be such a plan, at least, not yet.
"This is not a
final, comprehensive plan," Davis said. "It is merely putting together
a fairly generic box of tools to use in economic- development efforts."
Bellamy then added that she believes it is possible to merge both efforts.
"We can have
this toolbox and also develop a successful, policy-driven plan for the
City of Asheville," she said. "But we do need to know what needs to be
done and find some way to measure that."
Economic
Director Sam Powers, who presented the plan, said that many of the
steps will not be done by the city, but by private organizations,
though they can benefit from city coordination.
"This was not
intended to be a be-all economic plan here," Powers said. "We have
other plans, like the 2020 development plan, that address that. This
was just intended to be a supplement."
In reponse, Mumpower said that the city has never asked for "a plan on those core issues" from Powers or other economic experts.
"Iëd like to
speak strongly to borrowing that expertise and see about these large
policy impacts and find out where the rubber really meets the road,"
Mumpower said.
But Vice Mayor
Holly Jones said that "we should already have an understanding of those
basic issues, where staff comes in is shining a light on some other
areas."
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