photo by: Mike Yoder

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., Thursday, July 7, 2016

The Lawrence City Commission has agreed to hire a national firm — for thousands of dollars per month — to help the city address the issues of economic development and affordable housing.

The commission has encountered public criticism of its past decisions on incentives for economic development, and City Manager Tom Markus told commissioners that the firm will provide outside expertise that will help build credibility with the community.

“I think what you have is an independent look at those programs,” Markus told commissioners at their meeting Tuesday. “…When you know what’s going into the analysis to determine whether the incentive was legitimate or not, and you’re able to query the (consultant) about those things, I think you have a better opportunity to be more confident in what you’re looking at.”

One of the main services the consultant will provide is “gap analysis” to evaluate whether a project actually requires incentives in order to proceed. City staff put out a bid for the services in August, and recommended an agreement with National Development Council for $6,150 per month. The commission voted unanimously to authorize the city to arrange a six-month agreement, with a possible six-month extension.

Assistant City Manager Diane Stoddard pointed out that a portion of the monthly cost will be offset by the application fees for incentives, which are $4,000. But for some commissioners, paying to hire an outside consultant when the city already has an economic development coordinator on staff brought some hesitation.

“To a certain degree I kind of have to look at this and find a little bit of ironic humor in the fact that we’re about to spend some taxpayer money to further evaluate whether or not we’re properly making use of taxpayer money,” said Commissioner Matthew Herbert, who was one of three commissioners who campaigned on the issue last year. “…I’m not trying to kill this by any means, I just want to make sure at the six-month mark we can look at it and we can actually quantify what benefit we’re getting beyond the benefit we already have with city staff.”

Stoddard told the commission that the city’s economic development coordinator, Britt Crum-Cano, will still be performing analytical work, such as cost-benefit analysis. Markus added that he thinks working with the firm will provide both an outside perspective and an educational benefit to city staff.

“I would say that you have a real strong staff person in Britt (Crum-Cano),” Markus said. “And I think the teaming of Britt along with NDC, in terms of (the consultants) at NDC, certainly should expand her capacity to look at things maybe a little differently and apply some more metrics to the evaluation of some of these economic development proposals.”

The NDC has been working with the city on a trial basis, and the agreement will continue those services for another six months. The first public look at the firm’s work will be offered on Nov. 1, when the commission has public hearings on incentive requests for two mixed-use residential development projects, one at 826 Pennsylvania St. and the other at 815 Vermont St.

Mayor Mike Amyx agreed that the firm’s expertise would be good for both the commission and city staff.

“This seems to me that this is probably a smart way to go, especially if we have some of the pending (incentives) applications moving forward,” Amyx said.

Two city boards are also in the process of providing commissioners recommendations for proposed changes to the city’s incentive policies, and the commission will discuss those submissions at its work session on Oct. 11.

Stoddard also said the firm will help the city with its efforts to develop affordable housing in Lawrence. Specifically, Stoddard said the firm would provide the city with information on how it can be more proactive in its efforts and use other tools, such as federal funding. The Affordable Housing Advisory Board is in the process of drafting recommendations for the city, and the firm would work with the board as well.

Commissioner Lisa Larsen said she liked the idea of having someone from the outside who had worked on the issue of affordable housing on a national level.

“We need to get some input that will allow us to go forward with a good plan that we know has been vetted on a large scale, so I’m excited about it,” Larsen said.