The City of St. Catharines is continuing its tradition of partnering with the private sector to encourage investments and development to help to shape the city based on the needs of the community.
It's Economic Development Week and we are joining EcDev professionals from around the world in showcasing how the work we do supports our communities.
When we introduced our first Community Improvement Plan in 2004 we were taking a bold step with a cutting-edge program offering property tax breaks, matching grants and other incentives to private developers to encourage investment in the community. At the time, the CIP was being used to stimulate investment to, among other things, increase housing, redevelop old industrial lands and revitalize downtown.
Over the next 15 years, the CIP helped transform the community. Grants helped main street property owners usher in a renewed downtown by improving store fronts while investors offset some project costs with property tax rebates to redeveloping former industrial land into some of St. Catharines’ busiest commercial areas.
In all, City invested about $21 million in incentives in 98 approved applications. Once all projects are completed as approved, they will represent the generation of approximately 2,100 new residential dwelling units, 280 permanent new jobs and an estimated increase in property tax assessment of nearly $400 million.
Recognizing that the needs of the community have changed since our first CIP, we've launched a renewed CIP offering incentives that encourage investments that better reflect the City’s current goals , including:
- addressing the need for more affordable housing
- commercial redevelopment
- brownfield remediation
- mixed-use intensification
- and heritage preservation
And while St. Catharines continues to take the lead in partnering with the private sector to improve quality of life, other municipalities are closely watching so they can model their own incentives and harness the success of what happening here.
Applications are now open for the following 2020 Community Improvement Plan programs:
- Tax Increment Finance Program (TIF)
- Brownfield Tax Increment Finance Program (BTIF)
- Brownfield Tax Assistance Program (BTA)
- Façade Improvement Program (FIP).
As in the past, incentives provided by these programs will offset a portion of project costs related to redevelopment, reuse and rehabilitation of the city’s built environment.
