Clearing the Air on Pub Bars

As I’m sure everyone in Elizabethton by this point knows, the City Council voted last week to approve pub bars as a new use in the city. There has been a lot of misinformation and miscommunication about what the regulations say and require of pub bars, so I want to take some time today to clarify these points.

The pub bar regulations that were passed last week were specifically tailored to regulate the type of establishment that City Council has desired to allow, while at the same time attempting to discourage the types of establishments people commonly think of when they hear “pub” or “bar.” First, pub bars (along with breweries and microbreweries) are required to provide food. They can be in the form of pre-prepared snacks or platters for purchase or freely available, but they must provide some food. The difference between this and a restaurant is that the primary purpose of the establishment is not to provide food.

There has also been some discussion regarding breweries and microbreweries confusing these issues. Breweries and microbreweries have been legal in the city for almost a year now and the regulations allow for them to have a tap room on-site. When crafting these regulations, we simply looked for similar uses of pub bars (in this case brewery and microbrewery tap rooms) and set a similar standard for them.

Next, in our definition of a pub bar, we require that 80 percent of the alcoholic beverages served must be from a microbrewery (a brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels annually). This does two things. The first, is it encourages pub bar owners to purchase from small businesses in our region (all the microbreweries in our region produce under 15,000 barrels) where they can easily self-distribute to a local pub bar and, secondly, because craft beer is much more costly than high production domestic beer, it raises the sale price of the beer making the economics of drinking to the point of inebriation unappealing. This same logic has been used at local festivals that have started serving beer with no issues.

Fourthly is the issue of beer on sidewalks. While this was included in the regulations passed last week, there are strict requirements to serve on the sidewalks and in no case would someone walking down the street with a beer in-hand be allowed. The regulations allow for beer service so long as the business owner obtains a sidewalk encroachment permit and provides a barrier between where sidewalk pedestrians are and where beer service is allowed. Patrons of the pub bar will not be allowed to simply sit along the curb, walk down the street, or crowd the sidewalk with the beer in-hand.

Lastly, the City Council will be passing next month an ordinance amendment that will require pub bars to not provide service after 11:00pm. Currently, other establishments serving alcohol can serve later than 11:00pm. This will help ensure that pub bars do not become establishments open all hours of the night or become endless drinking establishments. We encourage our downtown businesses to stay open after 5:00pm, but staying open after 11:30pm or midnight is probably not something we want in our downtown. This will help ensure these businesses stay open late enough to provide a venue for those who desire it, but not stay all night.

City Council and city staff have put a lot of research, review, and have had many discussions with officials from Johnson City, Erwin, and even a few small towns in southwest Virginia regarding the impacts of tap rooms, breweries, and pub bars on their communities. There may be some who are upset and some who are happy, but in either case please do not think that City Council or city staff took the crafting and passage of these regulations lightly. We have worked together to craft regulations that we believe will achieve responsible establishments for our citizens who wish to partake of these types of beverages. Let’s talk about it!

Littering Has an Impact on our Economy

I recently attended a Keep Carter County Beautiful (the former Carter County Proud) meeting and was astounded by the reports of the group on some of their street and highway cleanups. Milligan Highway, Old Bristol Highway, and other various roads around the county (including the city) which individuals had collected multiple full garbage bags worth of random trash just sitting in the ditch-lines. Both of these roads are secondary entrances into our county and, while not likely, very well may be used by tourists visiting us. But, logic would imply that if these roads are like this, our major entrances (think 19E and 321/Elk Avenue) very well may be worse.

Once a year, the Chamber of Commerce has sponsored a river clean up. Every year they pull bags worth of garbage, tires, larger plastic toys, and other household items from our rivers. Similar efforts occur at Watauga Lake and Wilbur Lake each year. If you’ve visited any of the little coves on Watauga or Wilbur lake via a boat or kayak, you know what I’m talking about -- plastic bottles, styrofoam cups, and random pieces of plastics from who knows what. Some of this comes from boats on the lake, while some of it flows into the lake through rivers and streams, but regardless of where it comes from it makes us look bad.

Imagine you plan a family vacation in the mountains out west. You’re looking for something affordable, yet relaxing with things to do nearby. When you arrive, however, you find fast-food bags thrown in the ditch lines, rubber tires trapped along the side of a river that you’ve paid to float down, or a plastic bottle floating beside you on the lake you're paddle boarding on. I don’t know about you, but that would probably be the last time I would visit that place! Sure, the scenery is great, but the trash just ruins that picturesque image of that place.

This could easily be Elizabethton and Carter County. As we work to improve the tourist economy in our county, we must keep in mind that we are opening our home to others. Surely you wouldn’t invite friends over and leave your house a mess. We need to do the same to our community. Save that fast-food bag in the car until you get home or your destination. Many businesses and restaurants have garbage cans right outside their entrance that you can use. Take advantage of our free, County operated recycling centers, return used fluorescent bulbs to Lowes, or plastic bags to Ingles or Food City. Help keep our home ready and prepared to accept visitors. After all, they’re helping us and our economy more than we’re helping them! Let’s talk about it!

Less Parking, High Density means more Revenue

Property values are something that are vital to the cities in Tennessee and, for the most part, most cities in modern America. Almost every state has a revenue model that allows cities and counties to collect property taxes to pay for services. It is important for cities to, therefore, protect and increase property values. This is why we have a property maintenance officer, this is why cities condemn and demolish old, dilapidated homes and buildings, and this is why cities control development patterns – all to protect and increase the property values.

One way of comparing property values is by using a similar unit. An analysis suggests using the value per acre as a measure to compare developments. Using this process, can you guess which buildings in the city are the most valuable? Walmart? Lowes? Maybe one of our shopping centers? Oh, what about Snap-On? Certainly, these businesses do provide a lot of property taxes to the city and county, but the answer is no. On a per acre basis, the most valuable commercial property in the city is the Downtown Branch of Carter County Bank. The value, $5,765,670 (per acre of course). In other words, if we had an entire acre of property and built nothing else on it except buildings like the Downtown Branch that property would have a value of just over $5.7 million! Walmart on the other-hand, has a per acre value of $523,907, Lowes $537,179, and West Towne Shopping Center $392,903.

So, what could cause such a deviation in these values? After all, it’s not like Walmart or Lowes is a cheap building. Well, one of the biggest differences is the use of the property. Think about the Downtown Branch of Carter County Bank – the building takes up almost all the property and has a second story that is used for offices. Walmart, Lowes, and West Towne have huge buildings (in comparison) but have even bigger parking lots. Walmart alone has just under 9 acres of parking lot! The value of the parking lot is essentially $0. Having a vacant property with a parking lot on it provides little to no increase in the property value.

While parking lots are a necessity, an almost 9-acre parking lot (which was required by the city at the time) seems a little excessive. How many times a year do you see it full? Even requiring Walmart to have 1 less acre of parking could have resulted in having another restaurant like the size of Bojangles or Captain D’s. These would have generated at least increased the property value more than a parking lot resulting in additional tax revenues.

While the answer is certainly not getting rid of parking requirements, it might serve us well to reduce parking requirements and encourage denser development. This will help ensure that the city is getting the best return on our investment both when we invest roads and water and sewer infrastructure into a project. Let’s talk about it!

New Incentive Policy Benefits Everyone

As reported in the Elizabethton Star, the Elizabethton City Council and the Carter County Commission have recently approved an incentives policy to promote the growth and recruitment of new industry and businesses to Elizabethton and Carter County. I’ve had a few people ask what the policy was all about and why do we even need an incentives policy, so I thought I was write about it.

The policy that the Council and the Commission passed, gives the authority for the respective Industrial Development Boards to give incentives to companies meeting certain requirements. These include things like hiring a minimum number of people and providing health care and a retirement plan for those people, building an addition to an existing facility, and expanding equipment at the facility. Additionally, this policy also gives these same incentives to tourism-based businesses – which is now unique only to Carter County in Tennessee.

Having this policy in places gives companies and economic development staff the assurance that incentives can be offered. Essentially, most companies don’t want their business aired in a public meeting – especially if they’re negotiating on an expansion – to help protect their stock-holders and prevent their competition from finding out. Without this policy in place, every time a company wanted an incentive they would have to go before City Council to negotiate one agreement and before the County Commission to negotiate another agreement which may be vastly different. This policy streamlines this process for the business.

It’s also beneficial for the government and tax payers in that we’ve developed the policy based on what the true return-on-investment of the business will be to the tax base. Unlike some incentives in the past, where we’ve arbitrarily given all the property taxes away with little to no consideration to the fiscal impact on the city and county, this policy takes those elements into consideration. It offers a workforce incentive based on existing ratios of workers living in Carter County, payroll to sales tax, and city to county sales tax. This looks at return-on-investment by ensuring what the city and county give in workforce incentives comes back in the form of sales tax revenues.

A similar analysis was done (albeit much easier to calculate) with real property and personal property taxes and in these incentives, we only incentivized the increase in the property taxes that would have been paid on the expanded building or new equipment – like tax increment financing. This helps ensure that the city and county will continue to receive the revenues they have always received from these businesses in order to pay for the public services that they still consume.

Lastly, to prevent the incentives from getting too out-of-hand, we have capped them at 40% of what the existing company already pays in taxes. Keep in mind, that an industry may pay $40,000-$100,000 in property taxes annually and when the city or county decide to fully abate their taxes the government lose all that money at once – which could easily be a 2-3 people’s salary and benefits. Capping the incentive at 40% of will ensure that the company will pay at least 60% of what they’ve always been paying in taxes while still giving them relief on any capital expenditures.

This policy was intentionally written to protect the tax-payers while incentivizing existing and new companies and its adoption serves as a win-win-win for the companies, governments, and tax-payers. Let’s talk about it!

2018 Planning Preview

As we start a new year, it reminds to look forward and set goals for the next 12 months. There are a variety of projects the Planning Commission and our Department have been working on towards the end of last year that will culminate in 2018.

The first project that will probably see completion is the Major Thoroughfare Plan. The Planning Commission started the project towards the middle of last year and gathered a lot of public input on the proposals. Along with the adoption of this plan will come the implementation portion which calls for new roadway designs, Milligan Highway improvements, and the new Southside Road improvement between Mary Patton Highway and US 19E.

The other project that you may begin to hear about is the Land Use Plan. The Planning Commission has been calling for a new Land Use Plan for the city for the past 4 years and we are now reaching the point where we can dedicate the time to undertaking such a project. The Land Use Plan will provide guidance to the Commission, city staff, and to other departments in the city about what types of land-uses or development should be located where in the city and the planning region in the county. This allows utilities to prepare the appropriate infrastructure in different areas and guides the Commission when a rezoning or development request comes before them. The Plan will also provide guidance for changes to the City’s development regulations such as parking requirements, aesthetic requirements, and setback and building height requirements.

Additionally, our department has been working on three different economic development initiatives that we anticipate implementing this year. The first and certainly most talked about is the Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan for West Elk Avenue. In partnership with the County, we anticipate this initiative will be fully implemented in late winter or early spring opening up opportunities for redevelopment in the area behind Walmart and around the Bemberg Building.

We have also been working on the implementation of a new downtown loan program in order to help small businesses and building owners make improvements to their buildings with low interest loans. We hope that this will encourage new businesses to move or start up in downtown and improve the quality of the buildings that are currently in downtown.

Similarly, we are also working on two new entrepreneurship programs that we also hope to implement one early in 2018 and the other in summer of 2018. Both of these programs are geared to help local small businesses get started, be successful long-term, and help provide guidance and assistance in obtaining capital needed. These programs could also drive new small businesses into downtown and elsewhere around the city.

2018 is already shaping up to be a busy year, but many of the initiatives and activities that we will be undertaking are and have been needed in our community. We are excited and looking forward to measuring where we stand as a department and a city at the end of 2018. And, most importantly, we believe these activities will help enhance Elizabethton and make it more like a community you want to live in. Let’s talk about it!

Shopping Local for the Holiday benefits our Community

Well, it’s that time of year, yet again. All the hustle and bustle to attend various open houses, get to the next shopping destination, and making sure you’re home in time to hide the gifts from your spouse or kids. It seems like it comes faster and faster with each year! As you do your shopping this year, I want to encourage you to do it with intention – intention to support your community by shopping locally.

Shopping locally helps support our school systems. Many people may not be aware of this, but every time you make a purchase in Elizabethton, a portion of the sales tax goes directly into an account that is dedicated for city schools capital improvements. Many of the recent improvements at East Side and West Side Elementary schools were paid for out of funds from these sales taxes. Additionally, whenever the city schools borrow money against this sales tax revenue, a portion also goes to the county school system. So, when you make a purchase big or small in Elizabethton, you are helping to support and create a better education system in Elizabethton and Carter County.

Shopping locally and especially small helps support Elizabethton and Carter County’s local economy. When you shop at a small business in Elizabethton a larger percentage of the money you spend stays in our community and, kind of like at a bank, grows and generates additional income for others in our community. When you spend 100 dollars, 48 dollars stay in Elizabethton if it was spent at a small business, 14 dollars stay in Elizabethton if it was spent at a local business, 1 dollar stays in Elizabethton if it was purchased online and shipped to Elizabethton, and 0 dollars stay in Elizabethton if you make the purchase in Johnson City, Bristol, Kingsport, or Knoxville. Shopping with small, local businesses encourages new small businesses to open and small businesses are more likely to support community events and organizations like a little league team and the Covered Bridge Festival.

Shopping local helps support our city and our county. When you shop local, the city receives a portion of that sale in the form of sales tax which is used to pay for better roads, police and fire services, and funds our schools. But the other side of this is that it encourages new businesses to locate in Elizabethton. If our Peebles and Burkes had some of the highest sales in East Tennessee, this would pique the interest of other clothing retailers and stores like Ross or Marshalls may be interested in coming to Elizabethton to take some profit from the stores we currently have. This means more sales tax for Elizabethton, more variety of stores for our citizens, and more property taxes coming to Elizabethton and Carter County meaning our residence aren’t required to shoulder as much of the tax burden.

We estimate that Elizabethton and Carter County loose over 120 million dollars of retail sales per year; that’s 11 million dollars in sales tax to Elizabethton and Carter County. Now, I’m not naive enough to believe that we will completely capture ALL the retail sales for our citizens, but even a small fraction of that 11 million dollars in sales tax revenue could mean the difference between a property tax increase or not. This holiday season shop small local businesses first, chain local businesses second, and other businesses in Johnson City or Bristol third. Let’s talk about it!

Is it time to prepare for Renewable Energy Sources?

During our last Presidential election (and likely to be a topic in every election into the future), one vision for the future of the US electric consumption placed a strong emphasis on renewable sources of energy. And why not – after all, they provide a non-polluting, automatically renewing, low-impact source of electricity. Even in the early days of Elizabethton our first sources of electricity came from a renewable source – hydroelectricity from Wilbur and Watauga Dams.

While large-scale renewable source of electricity is much more efficient, we are starting to see more and more small-scale renewable sources appear in our community. We have a bank and veterinarian who have solar panels on their roofs and a residence that has placed solar panels in the back yard. Coming on the US market are Tesla’s new solar shingles, a stand-alone solar panel unit called SmartFlower, and varies wind turbines which can work in high and low wind environments. As these technologies become more popular and the prices become cheaper, we will likely see an increase in local usage.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, small-scale solar (think residential or small business solar units) is expected to increase by 23 percent nationally during 2018 and it makes good sense! Adding a solar unit lowers or possibly eliminates your electric bill depending on your electric usage and how efficient your house is. Additionally, in natural disasters like we saw in Puerto Rico recently, buildings and homes that had solar and wind capabilities were back up and running in a day or two compared with others connected to the grid who still may not have power weeks after the disaster.

A concern the community may have as these small-scale energy sources grow is the location and appearance of these sources. Solar panels may not look bad on the top of a building, but what about in your neighbor’s back yard, or what about a 30-foot pole with a turbine on top in your neighbor’s back yard? Aesthetics and appearance of these renewable sources can have a negative impact on home values and even the community as a whole.

What are your thoughts? Is it time for us to start considering aesthetic and location requirements for small-scale renewable energy sources? Tell us what you think we should require. Let’s talk about it!

Public Art Makes the Community

The discussion of public art has been somewhat of a hot topic this past year, especially with the formation and activity of the new Elizabethton Arts and Cultural Alliance. In many cities throughout North America, public art has started to become a recognized necessity. Public art was an identity for many ancient cultures such as the Egyptians and Persians and old cities such as Rome, Athens, Florence, Vienna, and even (to a certain extent) New York.

One reason it was and is becoming popular again is because it was something one-of-a-kind. It was a public icon that was specifically tied to a particular community or city and, therefore, helped you easily identify where you were before there were town signs or water towers with community names on them. In a time before every street had a name, you could easily navigate a city based on building landmarks (such as church bell towers), a city’s public squares, and the city’s public art. During the middle of the Renaissance, public art began to even become a competition among cities – who could have the most public art and who could have the best public art.

As I eluded to earlier, many great places and many successful cities have public art. Rome and Florence and two cities well known for their public art, but cities like New York, Vienna, Paris, Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, and Chicago also have a lot of public art. These are fun cities to be in and their public art creates a little excitement every time to visit a park or turn a corner to see a unique piece. Even smaller cities like Chattanooga, Asheville, Huntsville, and Johnson City and Kingsport have great public art or have started programs to promote public art. Public art can inspire future artists, provide a sense of beauty, and give an identity to these cities.

Lastly, public art provides something for our local citizens to enjoy and something memorable for our visitors. As we work to increase tourism in Elizabethton, we want to create memorable icons and things for visitors to take pictures of and with. Public art should be something that reflects our local culture and community. Think of a time when you visited a new place and years later, as you recall the story or look through a photo album, you say, “Remember when saw that ______ in ______?” When you visit Chicago, you might think of the Cloud Gate; when you visit Wall Street in New York, you think of the Charging Bull sculpture; or when you visit Paris, you think of the Arc de Triumph or maybe the Eiffel Tower. These are all icon that help identify the city.

Just as you hang pictures or other forms of art on your walls at home, so must our community “decorate” to become a more attractive and unique place. What role do you think public art should play in our community? Let’s talk about it!

Your Input Helps Shape our City

Anyone who has been reading my columns for a while knows how much of an advocate I am on public input. After all, it’s our job to create and manage a city that you want to live in! We now have another opportunity for you to give your input.

The Elizabethton Regional Planning Commission has been working hard to update the City’s Major Thoroughfare Plan. Essentially this is a plan that classifies every road in the city and helps determine where future roadways need to go. We use this plan to work with developers to dedicate the appropriate rights-of-way and it also serves as a basis for working with the regional transportation planning agency to get new transportation projects completed. Needless to say, this plan serves as the bones and arteries of the city.

In the proposed plan, the subcommittee is proposing some improvements to Southside Road to make it more of a throughway. This will help provide better connections for residents on the southern side of the city and provide another east to west corridor in the city to help alleviate traffic congestion on West Elk Avenue/Broad Street and G Street. The subcommittee has also proposed some improvements to Milligan Highway to help make it safer for vehicles using the road and bicyclists.

One thing that is new to the Thoroughfare Plan is the inclusion of pedestrian and bicycle trails. The subcommittee has reviewed and considered where existing trail systems are located and where new potential trial systems should be located. Additionally, this plan includes redesigns of streets to better allow for bicycles and better buffering between roadways and sidewalks (so you don’t feel like you’re walking in traffic while on the sidewalk). These new elements really speak to the emphasis the Planning Commission has placed on making Elizabethton a more pedestrian and bike friendly community.

You input on this plan will help guide the Planning Commission and the city as it develops over the next 10-20 years. You input doesn’t have to be long or lengthy and the format is open-house style so you don’t have to speak in front of anyone and can come and go as you please. Just stop by on your way home from work, learn a little about how road systems work, review the proposed improvements, and provide us with a comment as to whether you like it, don’t like it, or would rather see something else. By providing feedback now, you can help us make this community grow into exactly the community you want to live in. Let’s talk about it!