Cape Coral staff propose broad revisions to Chapter 29 incentives to simplify rules, expand eligibility

Sharon Woodbury, Economic Development Manager, summarized a package of proposed amendments to Chapter 29, the city—s Economic Development and Business Incentive Program. Woodbury told the committee the rewrite aims to clarify program goals, tighten eligibility, reduce administrative barriers and provide additional flexibility for strategic projects.

Key proposed changes Woodbury described include stricter eligibility checks (applicants must be "in good standing" with a current business tax receipt, current utilities and no active code cases), requiring applications to be deemed complete before a certificate of occupancy or certificate of completion, and language revoking awards if permits expire. Woodbury said the permit-expiration rule is intended to drive project completion and avoid long-open permits where work stalls.

Woodbury also proposed increased flexibility for major projects: the code would allow deviations from the guidelines for projects offering special economic or community value, provided staff document the rationale. She said staff wants the city manager to have authority to consider industries that the economic development strategic plan identifies later even if they are not explicitly listed in the ordinance, but they would document any deviation for council review.

On specific programs, staff proposed changes to Cape Collaborates and the Business Infrastructure Grant (BIG). For BIG, staff propose applying a 10% incentive to total project cost rather than limiting the calculation to eligible infrastructure line-items, and expanding eligibility to allow speculative or "gray-shell" development (developers building space without a pre-committed end user) and to consider retail as part of a larger mixed-use project so long as retail is not the principal component. Woodbury said the proposed change is intended to help catalyze industrial and flex space where current availability is "less than 2%" and developers face difficulty securing financing when the city requires liens on upfront funds.

Woodbury told the committee staff also want to reduce administrative barriers for reimbursement-based programs by removing liens or clawbacks when projects are reimbursed after performance is completed; staff argued that reimbursing after documented completion reduces risk to the city and avoids creating financing barriers for applicants.

Council discussion probed several issues: the need for caps on grants, how to avoid incentivizing capital-intensive uses that return benefits over many years, how to define "completion" versus certificate of occupancy (staff explained certificate of completion applies to renovations and certificate of occupancy to new construction), and the process for approving deviations (councilmembers repeatedly said they want to review any deviations early in the process and not only after staff completes work with applicants). Staff agreed to bring more specific draft ordinance text and caps for the BIG program back to council for review.

Ending: Staff closed by saying additional program text and the proposed ordinance language will be brought back for council review so members can see specific limits, caps and the deviation approval process.