SPEAKERS: COUNCILMAN SAL DI CICCIO

I was on the City Council from 1994 to 2000 and was one of the founding members of the Biltmore Area Partnership. We are in a whole different economy today than when I served on the Council before. We need to talk about where we are going in the city today. When I was appointed to the council, I did it for one main reason, I wanted to help the City of Phoenix, I know I can and believe I can or I would not be there. I have been there for a total of 75 days. The very first day I got appointed, we started putting together an agenda. I wanted to put together what I call our 11 point agenda that we want to get accomplished, wanted to get started and accomplished this year. Not next year, not 10 years from now, but this year. I want to go over a couple of them with you. Our economy has changed dramatically in that last two years. For any city or community to get ahead of the curve you have to constantly see what is happening with the economy, adapting to the economy, and moving with the economy. The points I want to go over directly impact what is happening in this area, with business communities, and neighborhoods in this area. Then I want to talk about a couple of my citywide goals that we want to get accomplished and we have already gotten started on. If you take a look at what happens in the City of Phoenix, we control basically any business that happens to come into the city. Every one of you, if you do business in the City of Phoenix, you have to go through our Development Services Department. Whether you have to get a permit, whether you want to expand your homes if you live in the City of Phoenix; everybody goes through that department. That department is ground zero for our office. If we are going to change the way we do business in the City of Phoenix, if we are going to find ways to grow our economy, if we are going to try to find ways to pull ourselves out of it, we have to look at that department. The only things we can control are those things we can control, and the things I can control are the way we do business in the City of Phoenix. So if we are going to be adapting and moving with the economy, we have to adapt within that department. I met with the Director of that department on the very first day and told Mark that you are "ground zero". I want you to know that we are going to be putting together a proposal that is going to address specifically the things we need to do to help move the economy and your department is "ground zero". I met with the Mayor, individuals on the Council and we have now formed a task force of stake holders. They are going to be taking a look at how we do business. So these are business entities around the entire city, business leaders, community leaders, they are going to be seeing what we can do to make our city better. I am going to be Chairing this committee. We are going to be taking a look at what worked in other cities. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel; we need to see what has worked in other cities. What specific things we can integrate into our systems in the City of Phoenix. No one has taken a look as to what has happened around the entire country and put it into one policy. What we are going to be looking at right off the bat are four things. These are four preliminary things but they are primary to make Phoenix a better place to do business.

The first is to streamline our system. We have to find ways that when people turn in their applications, etc., there has to be accountability on our end that we get these things smoothly, quickly and they are done in a timely manner so that we are accountable.

The second thing we are going to be looking at is the Curve. I was fortunate enough to be in a growing economy and now I am in one that is not. I can look at both and see what we can do. When you look at the economies, they are always going up and down and the city is always playing catch up. So our development services department as the economy is moving up can never grow fast enough and bring on enough people. As the adjustment occurs down, since the economy has had a significant change from two years ago, we have just now had a change in that department where we downsize. So we are constantly catching up. One of the proposals we are going to be looking at is certifying architectural engineers in the private sector. To take a look at if they could absorb the work load, and give people a choice of going through the City of Phoenix route or to a certified architectural engineer in the private sector. We would allow the private sector to grow while letting the City of Phoenix stay stable.

The third thing we are going to be looking at, and it will affect many people here in the room, is neighborhood preservation. The City of Phoenix does two things extremely well. It either punishes you for an action it doesn't want you to take or it penalizes you for an action it wants you to take. If you are a business owner and we will use Indian School Road as that is where our focus is right now along with Camelback Road. If you are a business owner on Indian School Road and have been operating for 25 to 30 years, doing the same business and you come to the City of Phoenix and say I want to make my building look better, I want it to enhance the neighborhood, I want to employee more people and create more tax revenue for myself and I want my building to look great. The city will come back and say fantastic, we love the fact you are going to be doing that, and by the way, your parking field has just changed, you have a new site plan you have to approve, your going to have to sprinkler it and the list goes on and on. This attacks more the smaller businesses than larger ones. The small business owner says, this is going to cost me75 to 100,000 dollars more and all I want to do is operate the same business I did before. We are gong to be looking at that and it is called adaptive reuse. Adapting, reusing the same buildings they are in. We are going to see what we can do to make it easier and smoother for people to operate their business and improve their surrounding neighborhood. When you come down to neighborhood preservation, you have historic homes and you don't want to be dismantling these historic properties. The new codes set up basically require you to do that. The fourth thing we are going to look at is how we do permitting. These are the fundamental changes we have to do in the City of Phoenix to be able to move the City of Phoenix forward. What now to get a permit if you are expanding your home or business. The way our permits are set up is that we have six month permits with a six month renewal. With the current financial market, you can't get financing for 4 months, so by the time you get your financing, it is time to renew your permit. That is ridiculous, that is not what is happening in the market place, it is not what is happening for these business owners that want to expand and create more jobs. We are going to be taking a look at that.

Now we are not restricted to the four items I have just talked about. These are things that have just started in the last 75 days. The other things that impact your area specifically, is to take a look at Indian School Rd, and you can see it could be a lot better. It can and should be a lot better. We have already meet with the business owners along there and we have asked them to take a look at what they can do, working within a partnership, they are going to be creating an alliance of business owners. The City of Phoenix is going to be looking at one project, an anchor project. We are going to create low interest financing, and a second, which is called mezzanine financing where you can look at forgiveness of that financing debt. So we are hoping this will create a spur of development along Indian School Road. Business owners on Indian School Rd are looking for a way to have the businesses have a look of continuity. We are going to be working together as a team in that area. The other area we are going to be taking a very strong focus on is on Camelback Rd. The area between 24th St and 44th St. is really the area you want to be-financial, business, retail. Why isn't it that way from 20th to 12th St.? We have already met with a lot of property owners individually and asked them if they would like to form an alliance of business owners along that area to take a look at master planning to make it look better. As a business owner, one of the things that restrict you from actually developing is that you want to see the landscaping in place, you want to see the street improvements and you want to see that all at one time. But the way our current system is set up is that when you come in as a developer or business owner or user. You have to write that check today. We are looking at a mechanism that allows these individual owners to be able to buy for 25 to 30 years, so those checks don't have to be written today but the infrastructure can be placed in today; so all those improvements that are done on a piecemeal basis can be done at one time. So we are going to be talking to business owners to see if this model can work, and then do a master plan for that area upfront. We are also involving the neighborhood groups up front talking to them, bringing them on board; asking them what they want. All these ideas are really your ideas. Every one of these ideas came from the public. We have found a financial structure that has never been used in the City of Phoenix, doesn't require any enabling legislation for it to work. Actually allows these business associations to thrive by passing themselves like a penny for assessment. That way they can create the financial mechanism that allows these developments to take place.

We have been working with the Biltmore Hotel and they are coming in with a 6 to 7 hundred million dollar investment in this community. We are going to make this happen. We are down to last two negotiating points that we need to get done. We have to work extremely well together, we have to work with businesses, neighborhood associations, and we have to work with everybody. My office is committed to making this happen, and we are laser focused on growing our economy. One job is too much of a loss, one home lost, one business being boarded up is unacceptable in this city. We have to find ways to move this economy forward.

Questions:

1-Two points regarding Biltmore Hotel? The gating issue and dealing with the neighborhood to the North and that is where the Spa is. By June 3, everything should be in place.

2-Creative type of financing-no money up front-how does that help the budget? When developers come in they have to do the construction for the road improvements, etc., they pay for that up front. When you create a taxing model, you allow those entities within that association to tax them selves for stuff they are going to pay for anyway and they pay for it up front. Basically they tax themselves, whether it is a penny or two pennies per $100.00-I don't know what that structure is. That allows the city to create a bond that we sell and allows cash infusion to do all that infrastructure improvements up front. It is not a fee and the risk to the city is virtually nothing. It has been done for water and sewer lines, but no one has done it for a redevelopment project. If this works, we can take this same model and use it for example at Deer Valley Airport. This is one of the busiest airports, but has not developed as has Scottsdale Airport. Why doesn't it have the same kind of development around it? Because we as a city control it. Turn it back to the private sector; allow for a private manager to run the show and you are going to have better results. We want the sales tax money from that, we care about the development around it and the quality. We don't have to be running everything. We need individuals to control their own destiny.

3) How does the plan for the expansion of 24th St to 12th St differ from an enhanced municipal district service? It is probably something similar to that. It is just a taxing mechanism and it would be voluntary. The plan we are looking at does not have to be contiguous but could be adjacent. You can also assemble property-not condemn, but you can get together and buy out a property as a group. It is a creative way of financing that allows development to occur right away.