Resolution No.: 36322 AS AMENDED

Develop programs to assist local businesses to purchase owner-occupied workspace.

WHEREAS, the City of Portland strives to create an environment that nurtures business formation, and encourages and supports job growth and sustainable economic development;

WHEREAS, the City of Portland recognizes the importance of ownership equity as expressed in its home ownership assistance programs;

WHEREAS, the City of Portland recognizes that small local businesses are the backbone of our economy. In Multnomah County, 94.2% of all firms are small businesses and for the Portland Metro area, that percentage increases to 95.2%;

WHEREAS, in Multnomah County alone there are 20,654 small businesses that employ 125,032 people with a payroll of $1.1 billion and, of these, almost 13,000 or over half are micro-enterprises with 5 or less employees;

WHEREAS, for the City of Portland, the benefits of a program that helps local businesses buy their workspace will be:

1.  A compelling attractor to encourage new and growing small businesses to locate in the city;

2.  A robust diversity of businesses that include independently-owned businesses;

3.  An incentive for existing small businesses to stay in Portland by owning a piece of it; and,

4.  A method for increasing the "multiplier effect" -- locally ownership keeps more dollars in the city.

WHEREAS, for individual business owners, the benefits of a program that helps local businesses own their workspace will be:

1.  An opportunity to gain equity and collateral for financing not normally possible for smaller businesses;

2.  A means of controlling and increasing the predictability of operating costs in the short run, improving a businesses economic stability;

3.  A means of significantly reducing operating costs in the long run (after payoff), improving profitability;

4.  A strategy for becoming "vested" in the city by becoming part of a small business "community" with more political clout.

WHEREAS, for the developers and property owners, the benefits of a program that helps local businesses own their workspace will be:

1.  A strategy for accelerating return on investment by "turning" projects rather than holding them for rents;

2.  A strategy for avoiding the inherent complication in mixed use projects with residential condominiums of selling the majority of the project and renting the remainder or turning it over to a property manager, etc;

3.  A means of gaining access to a large and mostly untapped market, not otherwise served by the development community;

4.  A method for reducing financing costs and financial risk to help sell out projects more quickly;

5.  A strategy for capitalizing projects by partnering with the City and qualified small businesses.

WHEREAS, the City of Portland; the Portland Development Commission; Portland Family of Funds; the Association of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations; the Portland Business Alliance; Oregon Women and Minority Entrepreneurs; City of Portland, Small Business Advisory Committee; East Portland Chamber of Commerce; the local minority Chambers of Commerce and others exist to help local businesses succeed; and,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that with passage of this resolution the Portland City Commission establishes the Affordable Workspace Ownership Task Force with a six-month mission to recommend program(s) that assist Portland businesses to purchase their own workspace at an affordable price.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Portland City Commission invites one (1) representative appointed from each of the following nine organizations to serve on the Affordable Workspace Ownership Task Force:

1.  Portland Family of Funds;

2.  City of Portland, Bureau of Housing and Community Development;

3.  Portland Development Commission;

4.  Association of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations;

5.  Portland Business Alliance;

6.  Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs;

7.  City of Portland Small Business Advisory Committee;

8.  East Portland Chamber of Commerce; and,

9.  A local minority chamber of commerce.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Affordable Workspace Task Force Appointees will include expertise from the following:

1.  Commercial Brokering;

2.  Building Development;

3.  Commercial Lending;

4.  Investment Banking;

5.  Planning.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Affordable Workspace Ownership Task Force will be staffed cooperatively by Portland City Commissioner Adams’ office, the Portland Family of Funds, the Portland Development Commission Small Business Advocate, and Portland Business Alliance.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the Affordable Workspace Ownership Program Task Force will consider using all funding strategies including:

1.  Incentives for developers and small businesses to participate in the program;

2.  Performance and other criterion to judge the overall success of the program and to qualifying both developers and small business buyers for the program;

a.  Overall criterion should include a priority for and tracking of benefits awarded as part of this program to minority, women owned and emerging small business (M/W/ESB) firms;

3.  A process to provide incentives either directly to a qualified developer as investment capital with strict requirements for passing the incentive on to qualifying small business buyers (“spec projects”) or directly to qualified small businesses with strict requirements for using the incentive on qualifying projects (pre-sold projects). The latter format could be in the form of tax credits or abatement for the small business rather than as direct capital.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, we request consideration that when putting together any Request for Proposals for development projects that the Portland Development Commission and City of Portland bureaus award additional points when scoring bid responses that propose to sell affordable owner-occupied workspace.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City of Portland requests assistance from our partners in Washington D.C. to develop federal tax reforms that would provide incentives to owners to sell owner-occupied workspace and provide assistance to businesses that seek to purchase their workspace.

Adopted by the Council: May 25, 2005    GARY BLACKMER

             Auditor of the City of Portland

             By /S/ Susan Parsons

             Deputy

Commissioner Sam Adams

Commissioner Randy Leonard

Commissioner Dan Saltzman

Commissioner Erik Sten

Prepared by:  Warren Jimenez

May 18, 2005

BACKING SHEET INFORMATION

AGENDA NO. 536-2005

ORDINANCE/RESOLUTION/COUNCIL DOCUMENT NO. 36322 AS AMENDED