County council approved the “Invest Well” community improvement plan on June 28.
Invest Well is an economic development tool intended to complement lower tier municipalities’ community improvement plans (CIP).
“Over the past 10 years … upper tier regions or counties have started to participate in community improvement planning, but it is very limited in how a county can participate,” said Nancy Reid, planner with Stantec.
Five of the seven Wellington County municipalities currently have CIPs, with Erin and Guelph-Eramosa in the midst of writing theirs.
The improvement plan is intended to promote five county priorities:
– use land strategically;
– provide rental housing;
– improve buildings and infrastructure;
– diversify the economy; and
– promote tourism.
“The county has developed these three goals that try to capture what the plan is all about,” said Reid.
Invest Well is not a CIP, said Reid, it is a strategy that allows the county to provide funds through local CIPs through two programs.
Invest Ready is an incentive package that helps prepare properties that have a high potential for development/redevelopment.
“It’s been modelled after the provincial certified sites program, and so it works in three phases,” said Reid.
The first phase includes access to $20,000 for pre-development design and studies. The second phase consists of a tax increment equivalent grant allowing the county to grant a percentage of the property’s tax increase over five years.
The value of the grant is 100 per cent of the county portion of the property tax increase in year one. It decreases by 20% over the next four years.
Phase three helps properties market and invest in attraction.
The other program is Invest More, which helps support a broad range of improvements to existing buildings/properties. The county can provide grants valued at up to 50% of remaining eligible costs, up to a maximum of $10,000 per project.
The Invest Well plan has been turned into a checklist for member municipalities to integrate with their existing CIPs.
“This checklist uses all of those priorities and allows local municipalities to evaluate applications for your financial incentives at the local level and if a certain score is met … then it will be eligible for additional funding through the county,” said Reid. “Following county adoption of Invest Well … member municipalities would be required to integrate these programs into their locally-adopted CIPs.”
Once applications are approved under local CIPs, the member municipality would screen the applicant with the Invest Well checklist. If the application meets the minimum score, it is sent to the county for review.
“As you see, this is a very proactive plan or strategy that we’ve prepared, and it will require communication among the county, lower tiers and private landowners to make sure that all of the money that the county is investing is going to result in supporting county priorities,” said Reid.
Councillor Kelly Linton said it was a “well-thought-through” approach at a CIP.
“It really allows the different municipalities to be unique in the way they approach and provide incentives to doing business in each of our municipalities, but it also allows the county to control that we are moving ahead on … the county’s priorities,” he said.
Councillor George Bridge, who chairs the economic development committee, said since the county benefits from property taxes, it is a good partnership.
Councillor Doug Breen said when he first read the report he was concerned it would be more work than it’s worth for businesses hoping for the grants.
“When I had more of a chance to go through it and look at it more closely, I realized this is a great balance of getting information that we need, but at the same time, not being so onerous that people aren’t going to want to take part in this,” he said.
Council approved an economic development committee recommendation to proceed with the program.
