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Originally Posted by PaperSun
I am not familiar with this kind of stuff, why should council approve this grant?
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Council has a grant program like this set up in downtown and other areas to try to encourage redevelopment and investment in the areas. It isn't like the city is even giving the developer money, just delaying when they begin to collect the increased property taxes from the development after it is completed. The idea is the grants make it easier for developers to build projects in the downtown and encourages development downtown instead of in greenfield areas.
Basically, the property currently pays around $95k annually in property taxes. After the development is completed, it'll pay around $2.5 million.
Instead of collecting the $2.5 million from the first year onwards, the city won't collect the increase the first year, will collect 25% of the increase the second year, 50% the third year, 75% the fourth year, and the full amount the 5th year onwards.
It made a lot of sense when Hamilton was desperate for any development in the lower city. Increasingly I would say that it's not really necessary in the downtown any longer given the amount of investment we are seeing. I wouldn't be opposed to removing it for the downtown, to be honest, but it should probably stay for areas which still aren't seeing much investment like the east end of the city.