DiNatale Backs Bill Aimed at Gateway Cities (07/05/10)
Posted 2010-07-06 10:45:25
New bill aims to bridge gap for gateway cities
By Jack Minch, jminch@sentinelandenterprise.com
Posted: 07/05/2010 06:32:23 AM EDT
FITCHBURG -- Legislation offering financial incentives for residential and commercial development in so-called gateway communities, such as Fitchburg and Leominster, is scheduled for debate this week on Beacon Hill.
The original gateways legislation was rolled into the House of Representative's economic-development bill to be considered Wednesday.
"There is a great deal in it, but most important there are about four issues that are important to the city of Fitchburg as a gateway city," said Rep. Stephen DiNatale, D-Fitchburg, who co-sponsored the original bill with Sen. Jennifer L. Flanagan, D-Leominster, and 23 other legislators.
The economic-development bill scheduled for debate:
* Proposes tax credits to qualified businesses that retain 50 employees or create 25 jobs in gateway cities.
* Creates a housing-development incentive program for gateway cities designed to promote new, market-rate housing.
* Extends a historic-building rehab tax-credit program.
* Recapitalizes the growth-district initiative to provide significant commercial and residential transportation and infrastructure development in gateway cities.
Gateway cities are economic cores for their regions and home to new Americans climbing the social ladder, said Ben Forman, research director at MassInc., a nonprofit think-tank.
Boston and other communities inside the Route 128 belt got most the legislative attention while they transitioned from a manufacturing-based economy to a more diversified economy, while other cities, including Fitchburg and Leominster, were left to struggle on their own, said Forman.
MassInc. and the Brookings Institute of Washington discussed the inequitable development between the Boston region and the rest of the state in 2007.
"They weren't experiencing the same robust growth," Forman said of the gateway cities.
MassInc. then wrote briefs on spurring economic development in gateway cities through economic development and residential development, he said.
Eleven cities, including Fitchburg, formed a compact in 2008 to promote an economic-development agenda for gateway cities that had been ignored by state government.
Another 12 communities, including Leominster, have since signed on and formed a legislative caucus on Beacon Hill.
"If the bill passed in the form we like, it would be the first in the nation," said Fitchburg Mayor Lisa Wong.
Housing is a significant issue for older manufacturing cities, Forman said.
Businesses are reluctant to open or expand in communities with dilapidated housing because it is unappealing to customers and workers, he said.
But it is difficult to attract developers to gateway cities to rehab historic housing because there are better profits in other communities, even for affordable housing, Wong said.
The bill would offer incentives to close the profits gap, she said.
Once the bill gets through the House it will go to conference to hash out differences with the Senate bill that did not include incentives or funding for the gateway compact, said Flanagan's district director, Carly Antonellis.
"It could look very different in a few weeks," she said.
The original gateway cities included Fitchburg, Lowell, Brockton, Fall River, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Worcester and Springfield.
[Back to News]
|
|
|
