BEAS Task Force Final Report...

On Tuesday in Committee in the Whole - Williams Lake Council will be considering the final report of the Business Expansion/Attraction Strategy or BEAS Task Force.  You can read their final report in full here

The 12 BEAS Recommendations being tabled with Williams Lake Council are as follows:

1) That the City establishes web-based marketing tools to assist and market business development in Williams Lake.

2) That the City develops a community brand, and marketing and media materials to facilitate the attraction of skilled workers to Williams Lake.

3) That the City designate the City’s net revenues from the Williams Lake Community Forest to specific economic development initiatives to further activities generated from the Business Expansion and Attraction Strategy.

4) That the City develops and undertake a program to educate existing and potential property developers on the processes and requirements to develop property in City (i.e. rezoning, development permits, engineering required, etc).

5) That the City review the mill rates for industrial property in the City with the goal of ensuring the rates are at competitive levels to similar resource based communities in BC.

6) That the City work with local mining companies to identify material suppliers that they currently use who are based outside of the Cariboo region and engage these suppliers to assess potential to locate offices and/or provide services from Williams Lake

7) That the City coordinate a strategic effort to fill gaps in downtown commercial spaces by building on the Lively Downtown objectives of the City of Williams Lake ICSP/OCP. (Integrated Community Sustainability Plan/Official Community Plan)

8) That the City ensure linkages to grow Mountain Bike tourism activities in the Cariboo-Chilcotin region; with a focus on expansion of support businesses associated with mountain biking in Williams Lake.

9) That the City establish an MOU with Thompson Rivers University to define roles and relationships in expanding post-secondary opportunities at the Williams Lake campus as a means to enhance the direct and indirect economic benefits to the community

10) That the City in partnership with local business associations, Thompson Rivers University, and the Community Futures Development Corporation support and encourage the delivery of enterprise facilitation (business coaching) resources to increase the success of local businesses

11) That the City assesses the opportunity to acquire industrial and commercial property to ensure progressive use and development of commercial and industrial lands in the city boundary.

12) That the City support and lobby for the provision of reliable and appropriate rail service for industrial clients.

The Task Force has identified that the 12 Recommendations can be started in 2012 by use of City Staff time alone or some expenses relating to meeting time (minimum money involved) with the exception of Recommendation #5 which may see an expense of $10,000 to hire an accounting firm to review tax mill rates for industrial properties in Williams Lake.  Note - the Task Force does not state why the hiring of an accounting firm is necessary in this case, given many other communities are going through the same challenges (high industrial tax rates) like Quesnel, Kamloops, Castlegar and a number of local governments on Vancouver Island.  Also consider this -- when a local government shifts tax burden from industry to residential without looking at all costs (administration/services) imposed by local government on the nine different tax classes (residential, business, heavy/light industry) then you are really playing a "shell game" with taxpayers'

Next - Recommendations 1 and 12 are ones that Council had already agreed to previously or are ones that are historic in nature and will take a considerable amount of lobbying effort to resolve (Recommendation 1 - Community Branding / Recommendation 12 - increase access to rail cars).  In this case - when BC Rail was operating, access to rail cars for industrial players like Tolko and West Fraser were problematic at best and now with CN running the rail line in BC - access to rail cars has become much more troublesome for the industrial players

Finally - a review of some other Recommendations that I found curious...

Recommendation # 3 (designate Community Forest revenue for further BEAS activities) - I believe Council would be wise to put this Recommendation on "hold" until the Community Forest has been fully dealt with, given the location of the Community Forest has not yet been fully settled (conversations with the Big Lake community are on-going and the other location for the Community Forest is west of Williams Lake has yet to be fully discussed...)

Recommendation #4 (educate educate property developers on the processes and requirements to develop property in City) - if you changed the word "educate" to "meet with property developers to discuss City policies/bylaws on developing their properties" then I would say that makes sense.  Simply to educate them without hearing their side of what City processes work and which ones don't makes this Recommendation almost worthless...

In the meantime - I will be interested to see what Council does with these 12 Recommendations on Tuesday and what recommendation Council forwards to the Jan 24th Council meeting with regard to the BEAS Task Force Recommendations

SBF