By : Felice E. Krycia-associate editor
Source : http://www.metrowny.com
Category : Small Business Grant
Since 1986 ,the Hamburg Industrial Development Agency has been working to help existing and new businesses develop in the Town of Hamburg and the two villages.
From 2007 through the end of 2011, the HIDA has helped with 44 projects for a total investment of $78,722,500 into Hamburg.
The agency’s ability is now being challenged by Assemblyman Sean Ryan (District 144), who is proposing a bill to remove most of its powers and give them to the Erie County Industrial Development Agency. There are five town IDAs in Erie County, Hamburg, Amherst, Clarence, Concord and Lancaster.
If the bill is passed in Albany, only the ECIDA would be able to grant relief from county and state sales tax and mortgage recording taxes. The bill is specifically directed at those five town IDAs.
Also the town IDAs would be authorized to enter into a cooperative agreement with the ECIDA to transfer any rights, obligations, duties or assets to the county IDA, which was formed in 1970.
“In other words, the ECIDA would take over every municipality in Erie County,” HIDA Executive Director Michael J. Bartlett said.
“The HIDA was started back in 1986 because we wanted to have more control over what type of development was coming to the town,” he added.
“Local IDAs know what the overall character of their communities are and we want to be the driving impetus of our own development.”
The HIDA mission statement, “To stimulate economic development with the Town of Hamburg by providing financial incentives for new facility construction and existing business expansion,” reflects that belief.
In contrast, the mission statement of the Erie County IDA, “Is to provide the resources that encourage investment, innovation, growth and global competitiveness - creating a successful business climate that improves the quality of life for the residents of the region.”
“They have a much larger overview and are usually concerned with the bigger projects, not the smaller mom and pop establishments,” Bartlett said.
“That is not true with the HIDA. Every project that occurred in the Village of Hamburg over the past few years has received some level of assistance from either the HIDA, the Hamburg Development Corporation or the Hamburg New York Land Development Corporation (all three are inter-related),” said Bartlett, who added they also work with the Hamburg and Frontier School Districts on projects.
“Why do we have our own IDA? Just look at Main and Buffalo streets,” said Steven Walters, chairman of the HIDA board of directors and Hamburg’s supervisor.
“Small business is what is going to bring the economy back. Small projects are important to this town and we are concerned the ECIDA is not going to be as concerned with them as we are,” Walters said.
There have been concerns raised over the years about why the HIDA grants tax incentives to companies who might have developed anyway.
“We are not handing out checks to any businesses who ask for it, which is a general misconception. The tax incentives are such that they have to make the investments first to get the tax incentives,” Walters said.
“For property taxes, 100 percent of zero is a lot less than 50 percent of a project with the abatement. In most cases we are making 15 times more than without the abatements,” he added.
“Not only do they invest in the businesses, they bring in employees who usually live and shop in the area.”
According to Bartlett, among Ryan’s claims is that the town IDAs are stealing businesses from each other and working toward identical purposes.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Bartlett said. “When a business from Concord contacted us to move here, we called the Concord IDA to find out what was going on.”
Walters said there was good dialog between the two IDAs and that Concord did not have any property the business could use, but Hamburg did.
“There was no sneaking around, trying to undercut each other,” Walters said.
Since 2007, of the 44 projects, only three were businesses which relocated to Hamburg. In the past five years, three other businesses left Hamburg to relocate in either the City of Buffalo or West Seneca, Walters said.
“Not only are we interested helping existing businesses expand, like Edie’s Pizza on Buffalo Street, but also help to repurpose existing empty buildings, like KTechnologies, which rehabbed the vacant Krepe Kraft building on Bayview Road,” Bartlett said.
According to Bartlett, they have an adaptive reuse policy, which was put in place to address vacant buildings.
“Everyone knows it is cheaper to get vacant land and build than it is to rehab a building that is vacant and possibly damaged,” Bartlett said. “This policy is to help with incentives to rehab these buildings, which will benefit the entire neighborhood.”
Another case in point is the Armor Inn Tap Room, on Clark Street, Abbott and Armor Duells roads. They have invested $1.5 million into the building and were granted property tax abatements, sales tax and mortgage tax exemptions under the adaptive reuse policy.
The abatements last a total of seven years, with the following breakdown: in the first two years, they pay 10 percent of the tax; 20 percent for the following two years and then 30 percent for the last three years. By the eighth year, they pay the entire amount.
“The amount of any abatement pales in comparison to the money invested, and I say that is money well spent,” Walters said.
“Investments lead to jobs and if your businesses are successful, so is the community,” Bartlett said.
“People outside of Hamburg deciding what is or isn’t important to the Town of Hamburg would really hurt us,” Walters said.
“The members of the HIDA all live in Hamburg or Blasdell and they have a vested interest in what is taking place her,” Bartlett said. “Can the ECIDA members say that?”
Source : http://www.metrowny.com/news/114-Hamburgs_IDA_is_working_to_keep_businesses_here.html
