The city
’s Planning Commission approved a financial incentive agreement
for a major regional shopping center Thursday, rejecting arguments
from labor unions and environmental groups to wait and commission
new environmental and economic analyses.
The city’s Planning Commission approved a financial incentive agreement for a major regional shopping center Thursday, rejecting arguments from labor unions and environmental groups to wait and commission new environmental and economic analyses.
After roughly an hour of debate and public comment, the commission voted 4-1 to recommend the City Council approve a development agreement that could grant up to $5.4 million in sales tax rebates for the Newman’s Pacheco Pass Center at the junction of U.S. 101 and state Highway 152.
Under the city’s financial incentive program, companies move in without paying fees the city usually charges for impacts to infrastructure such as roads and sewers. Instead, it allows companies to cover the fees with sales-tax income generated from the new store or business during its first few years of operation.
Like its new neighbor Regency Center across the highway, Newman has asked the city for a reimbursement to cover the fees associated with its new Pacheco Pass regional shopping center at Camino Arroyo and Renz Lane. The center would feature chain retail stores such as Party City, Linens and Things and popular restaurants such as Chili’s.
Unions have protested the move, marching in front of the existing Wal-Mart and criticizing its labor practices, wages and benefits. Thursday, they switched gears into the city’s legal arena.
Mark Wolfe, a land-use lawyer commissioned by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 428, was among the several speakers who asked the commission to wait on the incentive decision.
Wolfe ask for a new, independent analysis of the center’s economic impact, questioning the validity of an analysis by the Sedway Group already performed on the center and cited in the incentive agreement.
But when Council approved Regency’s agreement last year, Councilmen Charlie Morales and Peter Arellano voted no over worries that without guarantees, the center could possibly fall short of generating the amount of tax needed to cover the fees and leave the city on the hook.
Friday, Morales said he’s still concerned about the lack of guarantees in the incentive agreement, and the economic downturn has given him even more reservations and reasons for caution.
“When you have no guarantees, let them use their own finances and not put the city in any kind of unpredictable future situations,” he said. “My role as a councilmember is to protect the interests of the city and not (a company’s) marketing or business plan. That’s where I’m coming from.”
