Good evening. I will now call to order the Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee for Monday, December 8. We'll begin with introductions on my colleagues on the first row. Thank you, madam leader. My name is Brian Mallory, District 25. Thank you, madam chair. Nick Roberts, District 4. Thank you, madam leader. Kristen Jones, District 18. Thank you, madam leader. Brianne Delaney, District 2. Thank you, madam leader. Ron Gibson, District 8. Thank you, madam leader. John Barth representing District 7. Thank you, madam leader. Councilor Jared Evans representing District 17. Thank you, madam leader.
Leroy Robinson, District 1. Yeah. My name is Maggie Lewis, District 5. The first item on our agenda is proposal number three seventy one approves the 2026 budget of the Greater Virginia Avenue Corridor Economic Improvement District. Who is presenting on that? Sorry. I neglected to sign my name up here. Should I write it down or am I okay. Great. Good evening. My name is Michael Taft, representing 1315 Shelby Street in Fountain Square. I serve as the chairperson for the Greater Virginia Avenue Economic Improvement District Board.
It's quite a mouthful. We as you may be familiar, we're one of, two and maybe three, if you count them the same, improvement districts in the city, along with our kind of sister district, Woodruff, and downtown. We have a approximately $80,000, annual budget, that we use to, primarily benefit the commercial corridor that runs between Fletcher Place and Fountain Square. And, we are a board of, local property owners, that basically uses that money to improve this desirability for retail and kind of commercial
success in the corridor. So we have a pretty straightforward annual budget that we're presenting this year. It's, basically building on successes of prior years, not making a lot of changes. It's, a landscaping contract to keep things weeds in control and kind of, beautify some planters and that sort of thing. It's, a district manager that we help contribute to their annual salary to kind of be the glue of the corridor, and build And then, we contribute to keeping the fountains on. If you've ever owned a fountain, it's incredibly expensive, and it gets more expensive every year. So it encourages the city to us to have fewer fountains for now. But as Fountain Square,
it's extremely important to us. So we're very happy to be a partial contributor to keeping those on. So that's the the general highlights of, what we're doing. We try to do some public art here and there and, work with community. And, but it's it's $80,000. It's a fixed amount. So every time inflation goes up, it's worth slightly less. It's things to improve maybe on the future, resets for the districts, but, we're glad to have that funding to make our area better. Thank you so much. Questions from councilors. Leader Mowery. Sure. Thank you, madam leader.
Just a quick question. So Woodruff Place has this Excel sheet here for us that kinda gives us an idea of breakdown of expenses and how the how where the money is going. Obviously, 80,000 is not a lot to spread all over the place. So I don't know if you guys had something like this as well that you could share. And then I just I'm I'm interested to see how how you make the dollar stretch so far because, yeah, I mean, it's obviously a challenge for it. But, just I think it's just nice to see that this is what you're putting it towards. Yep. Absolutely. There I don't know which document you may have in your packet, but we do have a budget document with a brief budget. On the budget side, Peter. It is quite abbreviated.
Yep. But I'd be more than happy to provide more detail if, if you would like that. I appreciate that. It's always interesting just to see what else is going on and what you're doing, what you're using the money for. And, it's, you know, obviously, you're doing a lot with what you have and, just it helps us tell the story as well that you're doing so much. Thank you. Yeah. Additional questions from counselors. Counselor Gibson. No. Thank you, madam chair. Mister Taff, can you maybe explain more about the event security, the $12,500 and exactly what that's being used for? Sure. Yeah. So, you may know we're a mixed use district with,
businesses that are open, kind of throughout the evening, including several made, major, music venues, and bars and that sort of thing. So, one of the things that we provide are kind of on peak weekends. So generally summer is, I think, Thursday mostly Friday, Saturday nights, ten to two? Eleven to three. Eleven to three. We might have moved that recently. We have supplemental security off duty officer, that kinda does a circuit patrolling and then a kind of a text thread between business owners just to kinda keep an eye on with in in contact with the officer, just so, you know, things come up.
It's a it's a busy commercial district, so that's inevitable that, situations happen. So it's a really useful thing to just have a little bit of extra, communication and light work to, address those situations. Thank you. Councilor Delaney. Thank you, madam leader. The I just have a quick question. The the businesses and or residents that pay in, could you clarify if that's, commercial versus residential or both? Sure. Yeah. Residential, properties are excluded from our tax district. So we have about a 100 commercial owners, that generally pay, something like $15 a linear foot per year.
And I think nonprofits pay a reduced rate from that. So that's the general setup. Additional questions from counselors. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak to proposal three seventy one? CNN, I'll entertain a motion. Councilor Gibson. Madam Chair and Becker, we send proposal number three seventy one, which approves the two twenty twenty six budget of the Greater Virginia Avenue Corridor Economic Improvement District to the full council final adoption. The motion has been properly moved and second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next item on our agenda is proposal number three seventy two, approves the 2026 budget for the Woodruff Place Economic Improvement District. Good evening. Hi. My name's Hannah. I'm the president of the Woodruff Place EID. Your last name? Name? Saunders. Thank you. So this year, we did not use as much budget as we expected this year. So we've got excess funds and really want to invest it well into our neighborhood next year. And we're super excited that we found an exact replica of one of our original fountains. So we're gonna be trying to restore that this year,
and it's kind of pricey. Like he was saying about fountains, they're expensive. So our total budget for the year is 105,000. That fountain alone is around 72. Hopefully, not more. But, yeah, we've got other expenses towards our street lights. Those get expensive too as they're historical. And our trees, which make up one of the best parts of our neighborhood, those come into a lot of expenses too. But, yeah. We're excited for the next year. Thank you. Questions from counselors? Councilor Gibson. Well, thank you, madam chair. And, thank you for the very detailed budget line item and,
is very informative. On the street lights, can you can you explain the difference between the the AES and city owned street lights and and these are these historic lights? They're historic lights. AES pays for the electrical that goes to them, but we take care of the maintenance for them. K. So they need, a lot of sandblasting, repainting, LED fixtures to try to reduce costs. They're kind of a complicated, piece of infrastructure that we have. But they're important for safety and all other reasons. But Agree. I just wanna make sure we're not in duplicate expenses. Thank you. Additional questions from councilors.
Councilor Delaney. Hi. Thank you, madam chair. I I'll ask you the same question. Is it residential and commercial that pays into yours? Or No. We're just residential. Just residential. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Other questions from councilors? Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak to proposal three seventy two? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. Councilor Gibson. Thank you, madam chair. I I move the recent proposal three seventy two, which approves the 2026 budget for the Woodrick Place Economic Improvement District to the full council for final adoption. Second. The motion has been properly moved and seconded.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign? The motion carries. Thank you so much for your presentation. The last item on our agenda is a housing, update from director V for DMD. And while the director is making her way to the microphone, I recognize we have some special guests, in the audience. If someone wants to come to the mic and tell us who you are. Don't everybody jump at the same somebody. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for acknowledging us, chairman Lewis. Sorry,
chairwoman Lewis. We are with the advocacy works group that is, we've been together for about six months. And our fearless leader is representative Robin Shackleford. And so it's about 24 of us, community leaders that have come together to learn more about political advocacy and how to advocate for our communities and make change. So thank you for acknowledging us. Wonderful. Thank you for joining us. Director V, the floor is yours, ma'am. Thank you. I thank you, leader Lewis. Mhmm. Is your microphone on? I'm direct.
There we go. Thank you. Thank you, leader Lewis, for the opportunity, to provide some updates to the medic committee. I did reach out to each one of you on Friday. If you are interested in setting up a meeting with myself and some staff to go further in-depth into our housing pipeline. But I think leader Louis, and myself thought it would be beneficial just to give you a high level overview of some of the process improvements that we're working on, through our housing pipeline as just an intro into, what we can discuss further, at those meetings. So first,
just wanted to give an overview of generally our intake process to support new development at DMD. This is not a new graphic. This was included in our budget presentation earlier this year, so it may look familiar. But our housing pipeline is a part is one of those ways that developments, we intake developments to who are seeking support from the city of Indianapolis. But when we do receive new developments, we are looking to make sure that they're realistic, feasible, and fiscally responsible. We're looking to make sure that they align with neighborhood priorities, and then we're making sure that they align with city priorities.
And then we have various tools in our toolbox to be able to support different developments. And each one of these tools has its own regulations and requirements around them, but I just, again, wanted to give a high level overview of it. So we have our tax increment financing, which comes before you all. We have tax abatements, payment in lieu of taxes, which is, gonna be a focus of this housing pipeline. I'll get into that a little bit more. Community development block grant and our HOME funding. These are federal funds that run through DMD. We also have the housing trust fund that supports permanent supportive housing developments.
If we own property, we can reduce the property sale, to support developments who are looking to build on those sites. We help with pre development, this includes site prep and land remediation. If, for example, if it's a brownfield, or if there's existing structures on the property that can be demolished. And then we also support development through public space and infrastructure investments. And so that's our toolbox that can change, the tools that are in our toolbox. But generally, those are our tools to support new development. Today, what I wanna focus on is the housing pipeline and that payment in lieu of
taxes tool. That is our main tool that we use to support affordable housing developments in Indianapolis. And this committee is no stranger to that tool. Those come before you all for approval. So this policy in our housing pipeline, we've been looking at, just process improvements, and we're aligning that with, streamline any streamline indie, which is our initiative to just, improve permitting and redevelopment processes. That's in partnership with also BNS and the Department of Public Works. And so this, housing pipeline intake form is now on our new DMD development portal that is live.
There'll be a QR code at the end of the presentation to that link. We've also looked at just how we're intaking new developments. So we wanna make sure that, we're promoting this to the right circles and the right people. And so, if you all know of housing developers that would be interested in this, please share this information with them. But we are looking at our intake process to make sure that's easy, and clear for folks. And we also wanna make sure we have clear policies. So we wanna improve predictability, and we wanna reduce uncertainty, for people who are looking to build affordable housing. And so that's part of this pilot policy update is making sure that we have
very clear policies on what's required if you are to receive a pilot, and what is expected, from the city of Indianapolis, to get awarded a pilot agreement. And then of course, we want to provide excellent customer service and support. The ultimate goal is to get more developments. And so we want to make sure that we, do put, customer service at the forefront of what we're doing. So the housing pipeline itself, there's this generic, email, housingpipeline@ind.gov. So if anyone has questions, feel free to email us at that, email address. But generally the process, how this would go is a development developer submits the intake form.
There's a presentation to the pipeline committee which is made up of internal, staff members who are experts in those tools and in our zoning policies. The committee provides feedback, and then the developer engages with DMD divisions as needed. And that could lead to the developer pursuing DMD funding. So one of the one of the ways that we try to align this not just with our own local tools, but we also wanna make sure that it aligns with the state housing resources. A lot of housing developments, the only way that they happen is through the support of the state of Indiana with their low income housing tax credit.
And so we wanna make sure our housing pipeline aligns also with the state processes. And so we have a special intake process early in the year, and we're we're really, formalizing that in 2026 to make sure that we receive housing developments that are gonna go for that light tech, award with the state to make sure that they submit to us early. And so that's why we're coming to you right now, with these process improvements and why we'd like to meet with you one on one starting in January just to explain a little bit more in-depth what that process looks like, because we will want to come before you once we receive all of those light
tech applications, probably, I would say March or springtime, with that list of affordable housing developments for approval. That's a little bit different than how we've done it in the past, but we'd like to take it as a grouping before you all. But really would like to dive deeper individually and answer any questions that you have, before we do come before this body. So that is what I have for you today. Happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you so much for the update. Questions, comments from councilors? Yeah. Councilor Gibson. Well, thank you, madam chair, and I thank you, director. I I think, you are just doing an excellent job in what you're doing here, and and I really wanna commend you and the mayor in terms of,
pushing housing in my district and, the affordable housing and just a variety of housing. And it's it's all part of the work that you and your department is doing and just wanna commend you in advance for that. I'm I'm often approached about developing in my district. And one of the one of the questions I I ask a developer is, is about their capital stack. And often I find that capital's not there. And so I I I kinda shy away from those. But when the capital is there, I I tend to listen more and be more engaged. My my question to you, Madam Director is,
I guess I know you've vet the Capital Stack as well. And what I mean, is there a percentage you're looking for? Or I mean, I guess, any advice for for a person like myself in terms of trying to take, developers serious? Yeah. So there's a lot of things that we can look at while we've at developments. We look at the sources and uses. So when you're talking about that capital stack, those are the sources of funds. And we can ask for, you know, backup documentation to make sure that those sources are real. We review pro formas. A sophisticated developer is going to know the pre development process. And so we ask questions about site control,
if they have site control, what have they done from a permitting or regulatory standpoint, any environmental considerations. And so there's several questions we use to vet any certain development. But I would say really looking at the sources and uses. If you're talking specifically the capital stack, looking at the sources and uses and really drawing a line to that source and making sure that it's viable. Thank you. Additional questions from councilors. Councilor Evans. Thank you, madam chair. As you've probably heard me say throughout the course of my time on the council, it it's always somewhat,
I feel somewhat disingenuous when I when I read these reports and go through this information, and I don't see something that is specifically targeting towards our aging townships. Because in my experience now, ten years on the council, what I see is development mostly occurs in the core and then jumps to the counties. Now there are always a few here or there, but there's never the emphasis. And Wayne Township, for example, is a 150 something thousand people. I think that would make it the third or fourth largest city in the state
of Indiana if it was independent. And yet, I really don't see a lot of development. And so I'm only saying this not to get a response to say that I still ask you all to figure out maybe I'm completely wrong and someone needs to show me the data that I am wrong. I had one foot in development for a couple years, and I know from the experience of that and then what I've seen on this council, we need to come up with an additional incentive for the aging townships. I just yeah. I'm not gonna you you know how I feel. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna kick a dead horse here,
but what I see, I I just don't see something that is going to give me hope that we're gonna see that investment in the townships that I'd like to see. Developers even taking a look at the townships. And so I ask, is there potential things like, for example, on the tax abatement? Should we maybe be looking at the state house and trying to lobby for would it make a difference if we had a 15 tax abatement or a twenty year tax abatement? Would that be enough to incentivize development that we could be specific? We're not gonna do this in Broad Ripple. We're not gonna do this in Fountain Square.
We're not gonna do this in areas that already have plenty of investment. It's specific to communities that are dying for investment to happen in their communities and neighborhoods. Thank you. Additional questions, comments? Councilor Barth. I think councilor makes a really good point And something that I've been concerned about for a long time is the focus of development being mostly downtown. Even though Councilor Evans just referenced Fraterpala as a place to have plenty of investment, the challenge is whether while some apartments have been built,
investment in community economic development, not as much. And that's been a struggle. Recently, the new economic development entity has been partnering with us. And that's really only because local business leaders were able to put some skin in the game and get a consultant to help make things proceeding. But in general, the entire city needs to be looked at from an economic development perspective that's community driven and really focused on what the priorities and the, areas of focus that the folks who live there wanna see. And I think your idea of thinking more broadly about how we can have some
economic tools come from the state house that we could target specifically to certain areas around the county that are not downtown to really attract people to live in the city, and to retain them, I think is a really good one. So I think that's an opportunity for partnership. Thank you. Councilor Delaney. Thank you, madam chair. I wanted to follow-up on my colleague's questions and I think given that, you know, housing is a priority for us as a council that it's important for me to ask this question, but why are we not seeing development out in the townships?
Why is it concentrated in Center Township? If you could just take a moment to briefly explain that. Yeah. Thank you for the question. So I first just wanna say that these tools are not exclusive to any one area of the city. So they they are able to be deployed in all corners, of Marion County. So I just wanna make that clear for, you know, anyone who is interested in using these tools. I would say that downtown is a denser area. It's our dentist area of the county.
And so just through that, you're gonna see more development. If you look downtown, right, you see a lot more development than you would in other areas of the city just cause of the nature of what a downtown is. And so you do see more development in higher density areas of our city. And I would say that's true for any city across, the country. I'm not sure if that answer her question or not. Catherine Delaney. I I mean, it's it's just seems very vague, I think, is kind of what I feel like my colleagues are getting at, and it felt vague to me. But, you know,
I know you've offered to set up meetings with us. So I I think that's something that I'll explore further in our personal meetings. Yeah. And I guess if I sorry. I I didn't mean to be too generic with it. There are barriers to the different market conditions in other areas of Indianapolis. I don't I couldn't speak to that generically across the different counties, or the townships, but happy to look at the specific areas and what the market conditions are and and why there are barriers to to develop in specific areas of Indianapolis. Councilor Evans. Thank you, madam chair.
So just to add on that, I would think that that DMD would want to know. I mean, the her question is something you guys should know the answer to actually. And so perhaps in January or February at a different time next year, we could come back to this conversation barriers? Because this is nothing new. I mean, I've been mad about this for years. And it's this is a part of our job. We need to figure out what tools do we need. If we don't have it, what do we need? Which is why I'm suggesting. Do we need to go to the state house and say, look, can we do a fifteen year or would a twenty year tax abatement work?
And also streamline the process. I I've talked with, Jenny Fultz about this. Pittsburgh, for example. The developers, it's all just it's a streamlined process. The criteria is there. If you meet the criteria, you get automatic tax abatement. There is no going to their DMD and back and forth and all these things. Time is money for development. So I'm just asking for a more proactive conversation because we know it's not happening. I mean, to your point about the urban course, okay, I I agree with you on that. But like I said, there are other cities in the state that are smaller than my township who are
getting development. And so if it's if it's just having condensity, let's figure out where we do that at. Right? West Washington Street, Chapel Hill. Let's focus in on those communities and say, how do we start getting redevelopment in those communities? Like, what are the tools that would incentivize our developers to come here? Thank you, director. Thank you, councilor. Any additional comments? Thank you so much for your presentation. Seeing no other business before this committee, I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. We are adjourned.