Comment 119663

By Kris (registered) | Posted July 05, 2016 at 14:40:25

The OTAP grants program is specifically intended to attract tenants from "outside the city", according to its own preamble. This hardly seems to be the case here. It doesn't make sense to me to use public funds to subsidize business moving around within the city, whatever direction they are moving, up or down the mountain. Secondarily, the OTAP policy also requires additional property tax generation, or strongly implies that is the intent (v. item #23) but apparently that's not the case here. Finally, they tried to approve $700K which is well above the maximum allowed. So it seems like this is a gift to HHS that has been shoe-horned into a program where it does not meet the eligibility criteria or broader purpose; a gift that HHS may not even need. This is not responsible government. Still, I favour the program and root for the Downtown. But this is dumb and councillors should have voted against it.

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