Instead of rolling out the red carpet for business, the city is rolling out red tape, according to a local developer.
Harry Backlin was unimpressed with a council decision Monday night to put off for a year the decision to offer tax incentives to future tenants of the light industrial lands west of the airport.
The owner of the Prince George Logistics Park, the 1,200 hectares west of the the Prince George Airport, was looking for a tax exemption bylaw to draw development to the area.
A report to council from corporate services director Kathleen Soltis suggested that council not support the idea as the market had yet to be tested.
Access to the area will be available once the construction of Boundary Road is complete this fall.
"Given the economic growth being experienced in Prince George and throughout Northern B.C., industrial lands are increasingly in demand thus creating the conditions for success," she also wrote.
The majority of council decided the ask was premature and wanted to give the matter some breathing room. Coun. Albert Koehler alone was opposed to the idea, wanting to settle the issue.
"There a tax incentive program downtown that obviously works," he said, adding there was no sufficient reason given to not support the request. "Why defer this?"
Backlin, who is leading the project on behalf of landowner Henry Rempel, called the deferral "ridiculous."
In the past two years, Backlin said he has sourced 23 cities in the province with similar incentives and spoken to representatives to 17 of them.
"They're all saying it's a good thing, a tremendous way of bringing people into the community, giving them an incentive to come in with the city offering something," he said.
According to Backlin, the logistics park property has been on the market for about eight months and interest has been shown, but that people are asking about the same kinds of tax incentives available in other cities.
"And we're saying we're working on it. Now we're going to have to tell them no, they're going to think about it next year," he said.
The exemption program would not just be for the airport lands, but also for other industrial lands in the city limits, Backlin said, adding council's non-decision won't spur much market movement.
"They're telling us... let's see what happens. Let's put it on the market, let's wait for a couple years to see what happens," he said. "With all due respect, after 37 years in this community doing what I'm doing, that's not the way we do business."
