Memphis City Council committee approves PILOT changes - Memphis Business Journal:

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The matter now goes before the full city councilo onApril 7. The unanimously approved the same resolutiojnon Feb. 24. Memphis and Shelbty County division of planning and development executivwe directorCharles Gullota, senior vice president of economic developmen Mark Herbison and Office of Planning and Development compliance officer Joanne Massey made the presentation to the “What Charles Gullota and I were askedx to do as economic developmenrt professionals was to bring a plan to make us as competitive as we thoughg we (the city and county) coulds be and that’s what we Herbison said.
On the administrative side, the resolution woulxd enhance compliance monitoring ofindividual PILOTs, expand reporting to the Shelbyt County Commission and streamline the tax abatement The move is in response to restrictive measurees put on the program in recent years that some say have steered new industriesx away from Memphis into othed markets, including DeSoto County, Miss. Also, companies which go bankrupt, relocat e before their PILOT term ends or default would have theitPILOTs canceled.
The resolution would do away with theresidencyu requirement, which forces companies to have 75 percent of its employeex living in Shelby County, although economic development officialas would encourage and assist employers in hiring Shelby Count residents. The resolution would only require companiezs to go before the Memphis and Shelbyu County IndustrialDevelopment Board, streamliningb the process. Right now, companies are required to go beforse a PILOT evaluation committee and the full oftenweeks apart. This is an impedimenyt to companies with executives and consultantsfrom out-of-state.
The applications then have to be approveed independently by the county commission andcity council, makingv the process more protracted and highly The resolution would also eliminate the PILOT’s repayment which required companies to put money into escroqw in order to pay the city and countyh back if it failed to meet its job creationj or capital investment City councilman Kemp Conrad said the PILOg changes clearing the committee is a positived development, but the issue could face debatwe at the full city councipl meeting. Conrad, who is also president of , said thess PILOT changes could be key in helpingb Memphis and Shelby County throughj challengingeconomic times.
“We have to grow our way out of this crisisw and the only way to do that is to createe jobs in theprivate sector,” he says. “The reality is that what we’rse doing now is forcing people out of theregionh or, if they want to be in this to DeSoto County.”