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Council reviews draft economic-development incentive guidelines, emphasizes gap analysis and housing incentives
Summary
City staff previewed proposed revisions to economic-development guidelines that shift to an incentive-based matrix emphasizing capital investment, jobs and quality-of-place. Council members pressed for gap analysis, protections for public interests and options to incentivize housing and infill, including Neighborhood Revitalization Act tools and clawback/expiration language.
City staff led by assistant city manager Troy Anderson presented a status update on a rewrite of Wichita’s economic-development guidelines, moving the document toward an incentive-based structure and a matrix that weighs capital investment, job creation and quality-of-place.
Staff outlined a draft approach that would allow projects to earn portions of a property-tax abatement by scoring across three "legs" — capital, jobs (or housing density) and alignment with city goals — each potentially worth up to 30 percent, with a possible 10 percent bonus for meeting all three. Housing incentives were explicitly folded into the matrix: higher-density projects could qualify for larger abatements, and staff proposed adding reinvestment housing incentive districts and revisiting the Neighborhood Revitalization Act as tools to encourage infill.
Council members requested more robust gap analysis to justify incentives and protect the public interest, raised concerns about overly generous abatements that merely increase developer margins, and urged inclusion of equity and private-equity weighting in the scoring. Staff noted competition among jurisdictions and the complexity of assessing gaps for manufacturers and data-center investments and proposed bringing more detailed models and thresholds back to council at future workshops.
The draft also includes administrative topics: background checks for applicants, exclusions for entities delinquent in payments to the city, expiration-of-offer language, and discussion of clawback provisions. Staff committed to more reporting, including quarterly construction progress and an annual comprehensive incentives report.
Next steps: staff will refine the guidelines, work on gap-analysis tools and return to council in future workshops (including a focused "places for people" workshop) to continue the discussion and incorporate stakeholder feedback.
