evening everyone we will call this hearing of the economic development committee to order I'm so glad that you are all joining us on this evening for the Department of development's minimum qualifying incentive wage threshold policy as a refresher our current policy states that only jobs that pay 15 per hour or more can qualify for city tax incentives and pursity code this policy is up for review I want to pause and make sure that I do again give kudos to president pro Tim Elizabeth Brown under her leadership and chair of this committee years ago she codified this in policy and in that policy says that we have to review it every three years so we are now in that review period during the first hearing on September 20th hosted by American Floor Source again want to thank them for their generosity the department of development presented data on on the pay scales of jobs presently in the city's incentive portfolio National marketing wage data and provided a policy recommendation to increase the wage to an amount between 18.50 and 20 dollars per hour tonight we will hear presentations from four invited Community stakeholders which I think are well-rounded around this discussion because it's not simply about the wage but it is about our economy how we continue to create jobs but also about how do we ensure that the folks that work in our community are able to live in our community but also maintain that we continue to be competitive and attractive to grow our community it is my hope that after tonight members of the public and Community Advocates and my colleagues alike will gain New Perspectives and a stronger understanding of the changes council is currently considering I want to pause right here and want to make sure I gave a good explanation but I want to defer to deputy director Quentin Harris with the Department of development are there any comments or if you wanted to make on the first hearing or anything that you wanted to add to that foreign thank you chair Bankston council member um no there there's not much I I really want uh to add I think uh from the first session I just think we really took a deep dive um at the data using our existing incentive portfolio to just give us a snapshot of um what the qualifying wage rates are and quite honestly where the current um wages are per sector I thought it was very Illuminating um really the only sector that we found to potentially be affected by an increase in wages would be the distribution Logistics sector which we talked quite a bit about during that session I think the information provided just will give Council a good lens just to um understand what the increase will mean for our ability to recruit that one sector specifically um I think we still will be competitive um as the market is slowly increasing um its wages in order to be effective uh and competitive but um that's that's really all uh I would like to recap from last session and thank you again deputy director I thought that it was a very robust uh conversation that we had at that first hearing which is on the city's YouTube page if folks want to go back and view it a conversation again not just simply about this wage piece but really about how the city's Economic Development portfolio is performing so thank you and your team again for all the work that you put in on that first hearing and this this work that we are embarking on here tonight I do want to clarify before we go into the presentations and hear from my colleagues that this is simply about the wage threshold for folks that are seeking public incentive dollars from the city of Columbus this does not impact the minimum wage of the city unfortunately we have a state house that does not believe in workers rights as much as we do here at City Hall and have really strong armed and pigeon and holded us uh that we are not able to change the minimum wage for the entire city so unfortunately it does not affect everyone but it does affect those that are seeking public uh dollars uh and public incentive uh to come to our our city or to grow in our city so I just want to make that clarification and also uh it does not affect current city employee employees as well or those that do contracts with the city I think that is our conversations that colleagues around this diet are thinking about as this being a catalyst and so we're excited about those ongoing conversations I just want to make sure I had that point of clarification to tonight's hearing I am excited to be joined by two of my colleagues here tonight and want to make sure that I give them an opportunity to give in the opening remarks so first council member Lord s barosso De Padilla um thank you chair Bankston um excited to hear the uh testimony this evening I mean whenever we have the opportunity to pay people more uh number one to remain competitive well number one because we should pay more number two to remain competitive I think um is always an opportunity for us to um really have a thoughtful conversation intentional conversation about the best of the way that we can do that the pros and accounts even if this is only one little slice of the pie it is an opportunity for us to say to folks yes we will incentivize you but you also need to raise the bar and what and how you're treating others and how your um pouring into the prosperity of our people and our families and that's really what this is an effort at doing so um thank you for holding the hearings and um again excited to hear from our speakers thank you councilman and vice chair of our Economic Development Committee council member Emanuel Raymond thank you very much council member Bankston chair Bankston uh appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening this is important work we've spent a lot of time shaping you know what this policy means for the city of Columbus and you know we did a great job getting people at 15 an hour but it's now time to raise the bar make sure that people in this community can receive a a living wage from those people that receive incentives as we're growing we are growing in you know at rates that are many times greater than other cities in the country so we just want to be reflective and so I appreciate the work that the Department's put in to analyze this to look at what that means the impact of it but we're also excited that you know these companies that will come in in the future and the people that receive these incentives are locking hands with us to say that this is an important metric and we want to make sure that we're supporting our community so this is a good opportunity to learn more and we appreciate the work and look forward to the testimony this evening uh thank you Vice chair rimi and I gave kudos to president pro Tim Brown but councilmember rimi was the chair of Economic Development before I came on the council so thank you for your leadership and guidance through this process each presentation today of our invited speakers will have roughly 10 minutes for their presentation after each presentation will have short q a from the council members staff will also be monitoring the comments section on Facebook YouTube and the WebEx so if you are live with us on WebEx or if you're viewing via Facebook and YouTube and you're intrigued by something and have a question please pop it in there and we'll do our best to get that answered for you after all the presentations from the mem after all the presentations excuse me members of the public will have the opportunity to provide testimony as well each speaker's remarks will be limited to three minutes and so if you are looking to speak this evening please see one of our staff members first up I'm really excited uh my team reached out to Carly booze and her shop because you know I was saying to folks we always as practitioners and policy makers we throw terms around and we you know we talk about it because we're in that space But this idea of a living wage that we talk about all the time in her organization the affordable housing Alliance of Central Ohio has done so much work around this and so I really wanted to make sure that she was here to talk about that because I think central to my philosophy and this council's philosophy is that if you live in the city of Columbus I mean if you work in the city of Columbus you should be able to afford to live in the city of Columbus so first on our agenda I would like to invite Carly booze she's the executive director of the affordable housing Alliance of Central Ohio to give a presentation Miss booze I'll turn it over to you chair and members of council as you said my name is Kelly Boos I'm with the affordable housing Alliance of Central Ohio thank you it is now I'm I'm privileged to join you tonight to talk about wages Economic Development and affordable housing and the intersections thereof I think the theme that you will see running throughout is that these are not independent systems that they are dependent variables when we talk about affordable housing at the alliance we mean housing that is no more than 30 percent of an individual household's income so if you have a job and you have a home and the cost of your housing goes up you can become cost burned and that is not good if you have a job in a home and your wages go up however you can achieve affordability through either of those metrics uh one of the things that we believe strongly is that there is no single solution to the challenge of affordable housing in central Ohio we need to look at construction we need to look at programming we need to look at policy and we need to look at wages all in a Fell Swoop so as I said I am with the affordable housing Alliance we do have 28 members and we lean on their experiences and their expertise to inform the strategies to solve our housing challenge we do so through research through education through technical assistance and through advocacy but I do want to underscore that we are not a trade Association our work really is to serve the people of Central Ohio ensure they have the strategies that they need to solve the housing demands when I have any sort of discussion on housing I do like to Anchor it in a clear understanding of what affordable housing means and who it is intended to serve because I do think that there are misconceptions about what the affordable housing audience looks like what I have done is I have mapped the area median income Ami that's what a lot of housing professionals will speak in to the federal poverty line which is what a lot of our Human Services organizations speak in to an annual income as well as an hourly income and then to the jobs that tend to match to that and I want to stress too that we do in central Ohio and Central Ohio have programming designed to serve the housing needs of all of these different income brackets I think it's fair to say that none of them are sufficient none of them are meeting all of the demand that is out there but we do know that there is housing need even in these higher income categories um one of the points of information that we know to be true and has remained true is that 54 000 households in Franklin County pay more than half of their income towards housing that could be rent could be the mortgage we also know that we should be building between 14 000 and 21 000 homes per year to keep up with the demands just to not let that 54 000 number grow any larger in any way you swing it we are not hitting that track uh whether you believe we are at the low estimate or the high estimate we are tens of thousands of units behind where we need to be at this point in our growth as a result we have lost over 20 000 homes that previously run in for nine hundred dollars or less in just the last four years for comparison that's a housing loss larger than the city of Hilliard larger than the city of Reynoldsburg it's significant while we know that these housing needs touch many of our people we also know that they are most pronounced for those who are at the lowest end of the economic ladder those who are working minimum wage and those who are benefit dependent for every 100 extremely low income families we only have 32 homes available and affordable to them which means that two-thirds of our need is going unmet and conversely of those extremely low-income households the vast majority are severely cost burdens when I say severely cost burned it means that they are paying more than half their income towards housing and that is considered a toxic trade-off that means at the end of the month those are households that have to pick between housing and Medicine housing and food housing and helping their kids with homework versus pulling an extra shift or two at work to make the ends meet if you compare our housing wage the amount of money that a household must earn to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in our community to the minimum wage you can see that that Delta has been growing over a number of years today is a 10 gap between the minimum wage and what a Franklin County household needs to earn to afford the rent I will note that there is significant variation throughout our city on what that looks like here in the 43215 zip code a household needs to earn twenty seven dollars per hour to afford the median rents I will also note that if you have a child under the age of compulsory education you have to factor child care costs into your household budget these grow dramatically as well I tend to talk a lot about rental but we do need to note that this is a problem that affects homeowners as well as of today the average home sale in the central Ohio region is now over three hundred and thirty thousand dollars if you apply an average tax average Insurance average interest rate to that without a down payment that household is going to pay three thousand one hundred dollars per month to afford the mortgage to earn that safely and sustainably a household needs to earn a hundred and twenty six thousand dollars per year you may note that that is above our median income so the average resident can no longer afford our average home conversely looking at households that earn the minimum wage a wage worker would need to work 285 hours per week to afford the average home that is seven full-time jobs and if you're great at crunching the math that is more hours than we have in a week so a minimum wage worker would have to create three new days to be able to afford the average home one result of which is that we are now seeing evictions in Franklin County that are surpassing any sort of historical rate we have seen uh in our lifetimes that we have had 40 000 evictions since covid-19 began as the equivalent of evicting everybody in all of Worthington all of Bexley and all of Obetz I should note we are thankful that the emergency Ryan assistance program has allowed us to pull many of those families off the brink and we're grateful for the leadership of the city and the county and launching that program this is not just a problem for households but for employers as well we've done a survey here of local hausers who also have large staffs so they see the HR side as well as the housing side and asked what does it mean for you to live in a housing crisis as it relates to managing a team eighty percent of those surveyed employers said that anxiety and stress caused by housing instability reduces morale and productivity at work and over half said that they experienced increased turnover cost and retention cost due to our housing challenge in that same survey we found that 27 percent of employers feel deterred from relocating or expanding their businesses in central Ohio as a result of our lack of affordable housing an additional 27 so that they feel impeded in their diversity equity and inclusion objectives as a result of this hiring challenge we also know from National research that housing and eviction housing and foreclosure are closely linked and that a forced housing move increases a workers risk of being laid off from their job by 22 percent I don't want to be entirely Doom and Gloom we know that housing is a challenge but we also know the benefits of solving it are immense so for instance nationally 76 percent of Educators report that housing impacts their classroom and that they have students who are suffering from housing cost burdens and housing instability but solving affordable housing increases student Readiness for kindergarten it increates reading rates it expands graduation rates and it reduces the hypermobility stemming from eviction that causes students interruptions to their education similarly we know that health and housing are closely linked but addressing housing can increase residents access to preventative care it can increase their supports and their treatment for chronic diseases and it can reduce accidental and injuries that result in increases to a household budget and then finally we know that housing and economic development are closely linked not only is that employee and morale and absenteeism affected by housing instability but we know that by increasing access to affordable housing and again I want to clarify that as I'm saying that I mean housing that is Affordable so not necessarily subsidized housing but housing that fits within an individual's budget that that increases their ability to save and spend those resources on Health Care on food and on retirement we also know that there's a benefit to the community Through affordable housing in that every 100 affordable homes built results in 7.9 million dollars in local income taxes and creates 122 jobs we do know that Solutions exist I would be remiss if I did not take the opportunity to thank the mayor and to thank the leadership in the city for putting a 200 million dollar Bond measure on the ballot in November we know that that is going to help us reduce our housing costs and it's going to help solve this challenge we also need to look at Regional collaboration and how we can have cross-border solutions that work with the county and the counties among us and we need to look at how we can leverage our one-time Federal relief funds to ensure a durable housing recovery and I also want to note that we do have a program operating now in Franklin County that is targeted at ensuring those who are in low-income positions have the housing stability they need to go through a Workforce training program and unlock higher paying jobs that are recession-proof and automation proof and I want to thank home for families in the Ohio Means job center for their collaboration and supporting this program I want to thank you for your time tonight and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have uh thank you Carly for that uh um informative but also sobering I think presentation um and I think many of any of us who see the economy of Columbus and as a homeowner you see your home value going up we feel good about that but also it's applying pressure and we have to make sure that we have a community that everyone can live in just for a point of clarification when you showed that chart there with the uh at the Ami and the dollar amount attached to it what was the household size for that specific slide there's a family of three seeking a home with two bedrooms got it okay and then when we talk about this idea of housing costs are being housed in cost burden I do want to clarify is that rent or is that also uh rent or mortgage in many cases but also the other ancillary things with the household costs so utilities all that good stuff correct that includes the housing payment principal taxes and insurance for homeowners as well as utilities and I just want and this is not a question but more of a comment uh to see that data there and so you know in addition to to being on Council in my day job we work with folks uh who are you know at the at risk of being homeless and our good job is to prevent homelessness and there's always one story that sticks with me which was this young woman who got a good paying job uh but then also receive an eviction letter and lost that good paying job because she got evicted right and so to be able to calculate what that means for productivity the learning lost and relationships lost to her child now has to to deal with because of changing schools um what she now has to go through with that eviction now on her record is really damaging um and it's a ripple effect in our economy so I really want to commend you for capturing that in a really quantitative way I'll go around the dice council member Rosa de pity any questions for you I think this is helpful perspective but also for folks the effects that it has has had on homeowners which is a little bit of a longer stretch right if you're behind in your mortgage but I think it would just be helpful for people to understand what that cycle looks like because especially as we're talking about the effects of the pandemic how quickly people can slip and fall far behind I think it's good perspective for folks who it might have been a while since you've rented and you don't know what that that really feels like or looks like or what that process looks like today yeah I I do appreciate the question unfortunately Ohio is what is considered a one dollar one day state if you are one dollar behind on rent or you are one day late on rent you can receive a three-day notice that is not an opportunity to cure you can try to Tender your rent in those three days and it can and often is refused by the landlord that is just a three-day notice to vacate before a formal eviction process begins at that point the household will be served a hearing will be held assuming you have a judgment in favor of the plaintiff in favor of the landlord a set out notice will be issued and the entire process can be concluded in 45 days thank you for that perspective because I also think you know as we talk about housing I mean there's policies clearly from the local perspective I mean just like with the with our um with wages that we there are some things that we can put into place but I think that this is why it's also important as perspective for especially folks who are watching that state policy sometimes really hinders the progress that we're trying to make in a city and how we're trying to tackle our problems so it takes us getting super creative in terms of how we can really provide um support for folks and how we start to um you know tackle some of the things that we saw in that presentation so thank you for that and if I may expand on that too I was in the City of Gahanna last night where they adopted a pay to stay ordinance which does sever that one dollar one day Rule and gives tenants an opportunity to cure which is designed to match the rights that homeowners already have in a foreclosure process thank you thank you thank you Edie and Carly um for that presentation and all the work that you're doing at the affordable housing Alliance and just so folks understand we're talking about again wages here but you can't Silo that off uh right and again what we what I know from experience and I think what the data just shows tells us is that uh in order for our residents to be successful it starts with stability at home right housing is a human right period Point Blank and if folks are not stably housed all the other pieces of this great economy that we have in Columbus they are not going to be able to really share in or to be able to partake in so housing is key and it is that's that building block to stability in that building block uh to uh a livable wage and to having a job so that's want to make sure that folks understand the context here uh and that chair favor doesn't know I'm not coming for the housing committee okay so put that on the record but thank you again next we have Mr Bill Lafayette who is no stranger to to this place or and really appreciate all the work that he's done local Economist and owner of regionomics LLC and really excited about your presentation sir uh so I'll kick it over to you huh for the for the 28 years since my graduation from the doctoral program at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business my focus has been economic analysis and economic development in communities especially communities in central Ohio especially relevant to tonight's discussion city council and the Franklin County auditor supported me in completing a comprehensive study of the economics of tax incentives in 2020 and I'm also a member of the city's tax incentive review Council I strongly support a wage that companies are required to pay to qualify for an incentive on top of communicating an expectation that Columbus employers will pay their workers a fair wage it recognizes the costs of living and the costs of city services are steadily increasing now this policy May cost Columbus some projects that will go somewhere else but that's okay low-wage jobs are still going to be created lots of them it's just that they won't be incented we want workers to be able to support themselves in their households with the living wage but that begs a really important question what is a living wage well that depends on where you live and what your household looks like the associate the Ohio Association of Community Action agencies has what they call a self-sufficiency calculator the wage that you need to earn to support yourself and your household without assistance Beyond tax credits if you're a single person living alone in Franklin County you need to earn twelve dollars nine cents an hour full-time or twenty five thousand five hundred twenty eight per year to be self-sufficient but if you're a single parent with a school-aged child the self-sufficiency wage is 22.44 an hour or 47 400 a year if that child's an infant the wage jumps to 2503 an hour or 52 867 per year the big differences of course child care the department of urban studies and planning at MIT has a living wage calculator the assumptions are somewhat different and the minimums are even higher the point is this however you calculated a fifteen dollar wage doesn't give lots of households what they need to stand securely on their own housing costs as Carly pointed out are a big part of the concern especially for renters more than a third of renter households in the city of Columbus are what the Department of Housing and Urban Development calls housing cost burdened those spending 35 percent or more of their income on rent more than one in five households rent renting in Columbus spend half of their income or more and that's actually slightly less than the national average raising this for certainly recognizes the cost of living in Columbus is increasing but it also recognizes that people working in Columbus cost the city money not as much as residents do but workers are not Costless even if they live someplace else Public Safety and Street infrastructure are the big factors there now let me turn for a minute to the four itself a boost from fifteen dollars to eighteen fifty or twenty dollars an hour is actually much less of an increase than it might seem city council set a ten dollar four in the mid 2000s that ten dollars is equivalent to Fifteen twenty in today's dollars the twelve dollars that was set as a minimum in 2010 is equivalent to sixteen thirty three today and the fifteen dollars in 2019 is equivalent to 1741 today my recommendation is actually to adopt the four be it 1850 or 20 dollars index it to inflation using the Consumer Price Index if that's possible and update that for annually that way there's going to be no decay in The Four's value over time and no need to revisit this question every few years so that's what I wanted to share and again big thanks for inviting me in I definitely appreciate the opportunity happy to take questions uh thank you uh Bill and those numbers are astonishing to hear uh right that uh you know we're always going to be chasing um and and uh that's the thing I think that we have to think about and that we wrestle with uh as a council is how do we ensure uh that our residents are able to keep up with that what one thing and because you've done work across the entire country um you know what in other places have you seen higher wages what does that look like um you know how has that impacted those cities economy overall and their job growth well higher wages are actually a function of the productivity of the workforce and the value of their output so if wages are higher that means the workforce is more productive and that's why every time I get to to talk I push the idea of Education and Training as a way to lift people's income that makes them more productive and it allows employers to pay them more uh what will happen then is that because the demand for goods and services is higher because wages are higher than the price of goods and services increases and so it actually it's it's kind of ambiguous whether those cities are better off or worse off got it and then and I'm sure you may have crunched the numbers because I know you like crunching numbers uh but the impact of Intel and now this new announcement with with Honda uh no doubtedly is going to apply pressure to our already unstable housing market but what do I guess large companies like that didn't do to I guess the supply chain if you will and the other ancillary jobs that go around with it do you think that uh there we could see Rising wages just to be competitive or to keep up with those types of jobs so that other employers are you know being competitive definitely um I'm currently working with uh morpsey as part of my board service on the population and housing impacts of Intel and now I suppose Honda too um the the impacts are going to be substantial and I'm actually really really worried about the ability of our housing market to keep up I'm also really really worried about the workforce implications because these wages that Intel will be paying which actually range across the Spectrum they're not all really really high paying jobs uh it there are these above Market wages are going to force other employers to pay more uh in order to keep their employees uh every worker that Intel takes on or the suppliers take on would have worked somewhere else in the community in the region uh had Intel not existed and so the population impact that we're going to see I argue is going to be pretty close to what we would see if intel were hiring nobody locally so um I'm scared I'm honestly scared we need to be optimistic not scared I'll try we're going we're going we're going to take this head on and we're going to be successful there are definitely definitely um you're cautioning us on what what the negative effects are could be but then can we talk outside of what the positive effects many many many um for one thing it puts us on the map and I'm sure Justin could talk about this more eloquently than I ever could but we are now uh prominently featured as a a center for technology and we have been for a while with all the data centers we've been uh attracting with the Decades of I.T infrastructure that we've built up through the needs of Ohio State and the banks and the insurance companies and the state government and the the corporate headquarters who are voracious consumers of data um all of those things um I think positioned us very well to get Intel and uh it's just a different focus in technology but it's definitely technology and it's going to attract much more and it will increase wages in central Ohio no doubt about it any other questions from you councilmember thank you again Mr Lafayette uh for being here and for that I think very poignant recommendation we really appreciate it uh next uh we have Mr Justin Bickel he's the managing director of client services and project management for One Columbus so you know if you if you're looking at the folks that we're bringing here today those who work in economics and understand that those that are working in housing and that Community perspective but there's also this other perspective of those who are actively out on our behalf as a community going to seek new opportunities for our residents and so we wanted to make sure that uh you know One Columbus has been a great partner has had fantastic success of putting Columbus on the map and bringing um thousands and of jobs to this community to make sure that we got that perspective as well so thank you for being here uh Justin and I'll turn it over to you all right thank you thank you chair Basin for having me here council member brosa davidia and Clinton thank you for the invite um as as you stated uh the city has been a massive partner of ours for over a decade now since the Inception in 2010 when we are known as Columbus 2020 and now has won Columbus the last few years and there's certainly not much that we haven't seen um and as Bill alludes to I think there's plenty more to be seen and learned here over time too so my role here at this meeting is to kind of just give a little bit of perspective on really just looking at the last I'd say 20 months 22 months if we look at 2021 and 2022 kind of in a box on our competitiveness what we've competed for as a region and then what that translates to down into the local level not just the city of Columbus but giving a little bit of perspective on what's going on around the city of Columbus as well that's directly impacting this conversation I think too uh just for uh kind of framework purposes um as a refresher One Columbus is an 11 County Economic Development organization uh the state of Ohio is 88 counties so there are five other Regional organizations like ours uh that are state level partner jobs Ohio has kind of uh separated out here as you can see on this map into six regions and obviously the city of Columbus here is a significant partner in our efforts objectives and success but there are 11 counties in total uh and 24 communities within those 11 counties that are part of this effort collectively this is kind of where I wanted to start out as far as the competitive opportunities uh just to give you an understanding of of the distribution related and as Quentin alluded to in his comments um I think the only other applicable sort of job type that we could talk about in this respect um albeit um likely not the benefactor of incentives as a distribution related opportunity to be with customer support which obviously been a lot of changes with the office environment uh in the last two and a half years especially so focusing this discussion as it applies to incentives we really narrowly focus in on the distribution so e-commerce fulfillment Warehouse component of what our pipeline looked like so this is filtered down filtered down filtered down to look at what we competed for in a project uh also just to set some some framework as well to us as a company that is either here in the 11 counties that we represent in central Ohio or somewhere else in the world that is a value awaiting this 11 County region as a growth Market whether you're going to expand here relocate here acquire a company and come into new et cetera et cetera and you're going to commit to creating that new jobs fixed asset investment and everything that comes with that so taking a snapshot and this is from one one of 2021 really through last week when we pulled these numbers at the end of the week and what we competed for on a warehouse and distribution related aspect is a total of 33 projects out of the entire pipeline that's probably roughly about 20 percent I would say we're about 200 to 250 total projects that we've worked on in those 22 months and so if we look at these 33 projects 28 of them are attraction opportunities very rarely do we have an instance where an existing Warehouse or distribution employer is expanding that footprint because they're really coming based on need Geographic proximity being able to get product to Consumer within that that one day truck drive so I think there's a lot to be said there there are very few instances I'd like to think that one success that we had recently with Lululemon who bought a building here a decade ago has expanded so they're they're one of the the few expansion projects so of those 33 that accounts for about one billion dollars worth of investment and so that may be facility improvements that may be equipment software technology training that uh or not the training aspect but they'll be training their employees and certainly uh the real estate investment there of those 33 projects we're about 5 700 uh rounding up a little bit net new jobs to the region that we could have been eligible for and about 227 million dollars in total payroll tied to those 5700 net new jobs and that equates to what we've seen now this as far as eligibility we didn't win all these um about 19 and 14 cents an hour when you average out that now that that is I think as accurate as we possibly could be of course there are you know some of these operations may have a technology component to it or you know higher level paying jobs but the majority of those are going to be picker Packers a moving product throughout the facility if you look look at the next slide uh over that same time frame as I mentioned about 22 months these are where all the uh successes that we had in the region and that was 99 uh so far year to date including in 2022 and where those have all gone um and so of course there's a cluster around Franklin County city of Columbus but there's been great success just overall again this is all facility types we're going to drill down here uh as we proceed uh to the next slide looking at that same map but carving out the city of Columbus and again 99 total successes for this region year to date as of 1121 uh through now and of those city of Columbus has successfully landed uh 38 in total which accounts for almost 40 percent uh 30 roughly of the net new payroll and that net new payroll averages out across all projects again to just under seventy two thousand dollars uh uh annual pay uh the net new jobs is just over five thousand and the total fixed asset investment is is just North of 1.1 billion dollars just a little background there so if we go down even further and focusing on the distribution opportunities so we've we started out here at the macro level and talked about all facility types and now we see the blue dots and where the successes and this specific sector have landed and it might be a little bit to see from your your Vantage Point there uh from the cheap seats but uh what's going on around us you see there's a cluster down at the Rickenbacker area of course we've got a Confluence of communities with Obetz and growth port in the city of Columbus we've got Northern Pickaway County and the joint Economic Development District between the city of Columbus the Jed um Canal Winchester has built quite a bit of product over the last few years as well so if we I guarantee you this would have looked a lot different if we would have looked at it from maybe 2015 to 2020 or through 2020 and a lot of it would have been probably concentrated down in that Rickenbacker area from the new build and where the successes were but as the Region's grown and as land has been acquired and new developers coming in there's more competitiveness just in the region so a research team which is absolutely phenomenal pulled together a new tool that we're testing out use this this tool that we're testing out to provide a heat map here and focusing on the Rickenbacker area because obviously that's going to be the most highly concentrated area as far as the city of Columbus is concerned where we're looking at these distribution warehouse related occupations and and and operations this heat map shows you where those workers live uh in the region and of course you can see here very very high concentration in the city of Columbus and of course Franklin County and to add a couple of of of ancillary nodes here um we're looking at about 39 of the material mover positions uh in Franklin County overall um are of non-white um ethnicity uh and are living in most of those areas that we're looking at here within the city of Columbus so the Rickenbacker areas obviously a very populated area of what the city of Columbus residents who are also traveling there to work thousands and thousands of jobs and if we can take a look at the bottom box the Rickenbacker employee assistance Network which is a convening of over a hundred companies I think that are surveyed in the Rickenbacker area led by the Columbus region Airport Authority they do an annual wage survey of of those who participate in that survey in the Rickenbacker area and as you can see this natural progression here on raise on on wages Rising the starting wage that everybody has sort of reported on is about 16.76 an hour the midpoint is 1856 and the max rate is 1945. as far as those who participated and what was generated in 2020 Route 2 report so if you go back to what I opened up with as far as what we're experiencing overall as a region what we're competing for against other markets outside of Ohio that 1945 wage at the high point is kind of what we're seeing as the average wage on the projects we've been eligible for within the last 22 months just get a little give a little bit of perspective there the last slide I wanted to talk about was again the points that I raised about what's going on around us here um uh where we sit in in the city of Columbus and and some of those uh highly dense um uh warehouse and distribution sort of sub-markets as we look at it currently uh there are 26 buildings under construction where you see all those red dots totaling almost 18 million square feet of speculative development that is a record it's continued to be a record um and we don't really see an end to it um we just see as we continue to grow and grow outwardly that those nodes that you're seeing that concentration of uh will continue to see that speculative development and and companies coming to evaluate not just what may be in the city of Columbus because when we're eligible to participate or compete at the regional level there's options there are options in the city of Columbus or options in West Jeff there are often options in Aetna and so we're presenting those options from a competitive scenario to the client to the end user to the consultant and so just to break that 17.9 million square feet down total there's seven that are over one million square feet 10 are between 500 000 and 1 million and nine under five hundred thousand I think one final point that I'd like to make about some of the speculative development and and some things that that some of our communities have done here over the last couple of years namely like Canal Winchester um is Quentin's familiar with Canal Winchester has successfully built some speculative development um and and landed quite a few opportunities here over the last few years and to give an understanding of of where they are and evaluating sort of their thresholds for incentives as well as we've seen Wade these average hourly wages rise and what we've been competing for they've sort of set a barometer as far as maybe not necessarily putting something into legislation but they will not um uh they will not entertain I guess if you will at below certain points and so where we are right now we're seeing um uh canals maybe roughly 1850 18 excuse me 18.50 an hour Madison County is a little bit below 17 as far as what they will not enter 13 below that threshold Aetna does not have a threshold they have a pre-1994 CRA in Licking County and so really it's it's it's up to the schools as far as negotiating things like Pilots um uh on a 15-year 100 property tax abatement but there are a couple here that are post 94s with do give them the flexibility to install some sort of legislation that places a placeholder in for wage thresholds but just to give a flavor for what we're seeing in a couple of those markets or sub markets I should say it's fluctuates and I think it's basically something that I think we'll continue to see and as costs rise competitive for competitiveness for talent Rises we'll see that average hourly wage I think increase across the board as well that's I think going back to the the ren survey that I I mentioned a couple of minutes ago um the the historical context there would would reflect that as well as far as who's operating in that highly dense area down there in Rickenbacker so um thank you again for having me uh this evening Clinton thank you and I will take any questions uh thank you Justin that is great information and I think um it's amazing the name of the organization is One Columbus but therefore the region uh my job is to look out for the city of Columbus so uh and I'm not you know folks who know me and economically we have our briefings I'm very competitive I'm like why don't we I want that deal right here in my backyard but we don't get everything right and and so it is this I think this delicate balance uh that we as a city have to think about I think as the region grows yes we benefit but there is one caveat I want to make sure that folks understand is that you know our city budget and the services that we have to our residents comes primarily from income tax and so even though those jobs may be being recreated um you know there's other issues our residents may not have transportation to get to those new jobs that are further out that income tax is staying with that Community but then those folks are coming back into to the city of Columbus that weaved in as a city have to pay for those Services water police fire Recreation and Parks and so just keeping that in mind for folks that when we talk about this it's really easy to say go go For Broke and go to this but we have to have this delicate balance I think you answered one of my questions about what you're seeing in the region as far as competitiveness in in the wage space but I really want to ask this question to you and probably to our next presenter as well this Amazon effect specifically in the logistics space uh you know they're at 19 and in some cases 20 bucks an hour for some of their workers do you see for the logistics and warehousing space in particular in order to stay competitive and to keep up do you see those wages moving in that direction to compete with that Amazon effect so just wanted to get your commentary on that personally I think well we we have an economic monitor that Stacks our region up against other peer markets around the country um and and one of these components is tracking um where we are on a wage standpoint certainly but also on the most uh in-demand occupations or who's posting for those most in-demand occupations and the last that I saw Amazon accounted for for fewer than 10 percent of the open wrecks across the market here in the warehouse and and fulfillment Ecom distribution segment um I think Amazon's entry into the market had more of a significant significant impact on getting us to where we are today as far as wages Rising then I think it will in the future I think just the competitiveness and the fact that this nothing's going to change about this Market's geographical location so if an end user or developer senses that they would have success here and and whether consolidating somewhere else or coming new to be able to get product to customer with then that day's truck drive they're going to do it and they're going to have us on that eligibility competitiveness scenario but I think Amazon has more of responsibility or has more of a responsible part in getting us to where we are today with this segment's wage Rises than they will in the future got it thank you that's a member um so Justin I have a question what uh when you look at that map when you were looking at when we were looking at um especially the development about Rickenbacker right because that's like kind of a district I just went on a tour of Rickenbacker and they talked a lot about how much more business they were able to do during covet actually like it was buzzing and there's an intermodal facility for folks who don't know of you know moving things onto trains that move things onto trucks they move very quickly so it makes a lot of sense to want to build in that area because there's proximity to the industry right the other thing that struck me though is when you um we talked about this just the sheer square footage right of where some of these warehouses are um it I mean I feel like there's like a little it's like a little bit of like a chicken and an egg thing here right like like it's a little bit of like where are you building this because if you think about especially as we talk about density in the city of Columbus like where would we build a facility that has and who and and not I mean where could we plop down a big Warehouse like this in Columbus right so um that's the first question that I have around like just motivation is we're building like these areas and thinking about what the council member said around you know how it is a delicate balance right because it's a little bit of like the market necessitates for us to raise wages um first of all I will always say because it's the right thing to do because I deeply believe that but in a sense and I think we're motivated by that but also to be competitive right for for the good of all right to ensure that we can employ our folks and that we have them we're attracting them I swear there's a there's a question here but I'm just wondering can you talk to us a little bit about that balance though because I'm just trying to figure out you know what is the way forward when we're thinking about you know I'm just thinking about where in Columbus are we building facilities like that where can we build them how do we attract them so that we can keep that balance and we can keep folks working here because it's good for the region but you know obviously we are the Columbus city council so can you speak yeah do all those thoughts make sense yes um thank you thank you for framing up I I think Clinton could uh I will answer it but I think Quentin could certainly give a much uh more context than I could um certainly the the Rick there's there's plenty of land down there right um that's in the city of Columbus proper but we also have that joint Economic Development District between the city of Columbus and Pickaway County and if you've been down to Rickenbacker and you've just gone past the southern portion of of of the runway there uh at the Rickenbacker Airport you're in Pickaway County but you're also in the joint Economic Development District still for the city of Columbus so that's that's one I mean I think that that will continue to happen there's plenty of land to be developed plenty of more opportunity um to take advantage of building uh places where people can go to work and I think that's a point that you've made chair Banks into um I there's something to be said about the income tax collection um and and reporting to work and and generating that and you know keeping the dollars within the community versus what's gone on the last two and a half years and this this virtual world and the difficulty in being able to maintain and create or excuse me create and maintain a place of employment and work um the other thing that I think we're seeing too is Redevelopment um so where there is opportunity is you know let's uh talk about what I mean rogue's done in Milo Grogan right I mean there are plenty of vacated old industrial uh uh sites buildings Columbus casting site is a most recent perfect example of that right we all know the history there and the opportunity that's going to be built especially for residents on the South Side uh with what's going to take place there from a development perspective so I think just using the Rickenbacker example and the opportunity that still exists there as well as the Redevelopment opportunity and the infill as far as redeveloping the central core that's the best way that I think that I could probably answer that question yeah and just to add some context to that too right understanding the different varying complications with those sites right like like Columbus castings we're talking about you know you're lucky that you get someone who wants to to come in to a site that is that contaminated that dirty that we had to clean up versus Greenfield spaces uh right which are much more easier to develop and I do want to make sure I send her back um to this to this one question that I have and and if you have the numbers directly not everything that is being built or jobs that are coming here are getting an incentive what we're talking about today are those harder jobs maybe it's a unique uh opportunity for us to make the numbers work there is needed and an incentive so not every job that's being created or every investment that's coming into the city is getting an incentive do you know roughly offhand out of those projects how many uh received an incentive or how many just came to the region naturally are you referring to the map where I had the distribution related successes I think it was the the macro level one where you uh the overall successes okay um I would say probably the majority um most of what what One Columbus is going to be responding to is going to be a competitive situation where we've got not only are we competing with you know in this space specifically too right because it varies throughout all sectors as far as who is our non-ohio competition but if I'm looking just here it could be Memphis it could be Louisville it could be eastern Pennsylvania go on you know so on and so forth um but I I would say the vast majority of them probably did the one caveat that I should have made is that these don't all reflect maybe what the city of Columbus has worked on either right I mean so going back to my my primary slide as far as what we've competed for those 33 projects in this specific sector um that's just what we had visibility to there may be others as you mentioned chair Bankston about um maybe city of Columbus working on it and there wasn't necessarily an incentive evolve involved but there was a location decision that was being made and ended up being a success for the city of Columbus it just might not have been something that we had visibility to or worked on in conjunction with the city or with the state but I would say the vast majority of these companies received incentives uh with what we work on these are competitive scenarios we're competing against non-ohio markets and at the end of the day once the cost has been evaluated once the workforce situation has been evaluated restart real estate has been validated um we're getting to that point where we're probably talking about a competitive scenario where incentives are being proposed gotcha thank you um again Justin I really appreciate uh your work and just one last question I did have how important is it though for us to also think about flexibility um I think about some legislation uh that we passed earlier this year around Cold Storage right and looking at our competitiveness that was a deficit that we had compared to other regions and so opportunities like that opportunities like larger data centers uh that come here you know I just want to if you could just chime in and give some context to how important it also is for us to be flexible when we have those unique opportunities I certainly think it I think the best way to respond to that is um you mentioned data centers I can't remember how many years ago it was now but uh the state passed legislation the data center tax exemption legislation which really opened up our competitiveness here to Land multiple AWS facilities Google facilities Facebook Etc um and so I think that you know going back to what Bill talked about um with Intel the semiconductor uh uh uh industry was something that is entire is something that is entirely new not just to us here in central Ohio in the state of Ohio but the Midwest and so that's why I mean we still we there's so much opportunity that we aren't necessarily fully aware of but I can tell you that we're going to adapt and we're going to be more competitive in that space because that's going to be the future uh you think about the the Honda initial announcement over four decades ago and what that changed for not only this area but the state of Ohio we had to look at that the same way too and so to answer your question I think is we're talking about certain sectors talking about a certain technology-based things and what we're seeing for the future as far as the opportunity not just for the city but for for the community overall uh being competitive and flexible and forward thinking about how do we compete better and doesn't necessarily have to be tied to an incentive but it can be about how do you better appeal to those employers to bring opportunities to your residence and be more competitive in that space so I I look at it as the semiconductor segment alone as far as thinking a little bit more critically into the future how can we put ourselves put ourselves in a position to be more competitive and provide those opportunities thank you for that and we will see those opportunities no doubt um last up but certainly not Lisa a great partner again American Floor Source who hosted us and also American Floor Source who is located in the best District in the city of Columbus District Five that's Nick Bankston here uh we're talking about all the growth and everything happening in uh near Rickenbacker but there is another segment of our city that is poised for growth and that is the Northeast Corridor and we have a great partner uh there so Mike uh the net is the president and CEO of American Floor Source who is growing Leaps and Bounds uh here in Columbus and wanted to make sure we got that perspective from an employer on this subject so thank you for being here and thank you for continuing to invest in Columbus and I'll turn it over to you okay thanks for having us um so good evening um I want to start with the the tax incentive is very important to our business and our future growth uh the tax incentive aided our hiring during covid and during those times of uncertainty we added jobs if there are jobs lost in the market you know in the near future for whatever reason the tax incentive will allow us to hire when other companies could possibly be laying off and creating jobs uh we currently cannot find qualified candidates at the current 15 rate that are Dependable willing to stick around and work you know by the time we get those employees trained and working independently they're simply giving their notice or walking out mid shift many of these candidates we interview are currently at a sixteen dollar rate or higher in their current job or in their previous jobs so especially the people that have experience so they're they're getting a higher rate than the 15 dollars we have moved our hour hourly rate up from 1525 to 17 and now we're at 18 for our entry rate uh we have noticed a big difference in the quality of candidates and especially the new hires her turnover rate has dropped significantly these new hires have shown more determination and drive and most of them want career paths and to move up in the organization um some of the pros we feel to raising the the wage threshold would be better quality and dependable new hires that you can build your company around and flourish to AFS it's worth the additional pay to not be short-handed and put all the workload on our current employees with us having employees that care and want to move up in the organization they make less costly mistakes and we fill those savings far outweigh the additional costs for the wages uh bottom line is you know housing costs are up uh whether you're renting or purchasing a new home fuel prices are up and that's just the cost to get back and forth to work cost of heating and cooling your home is up and groceries costs more basically everything you need costs more today raising the wage threshold will help give a small amount of relief to the items that are absolutely necessary um I guess a few of the possible cons of raising the wage threshold would be you know the additional cost of higher rates during the training period of new employees for somebody like myself we've tried starting at lower rates in the past and then giving a 90-day incentive and then a six-month incentive the problem is a lot of these employees that you bring in at the lower rates don't even make it to that first raise or especially the second one so we're right back to square one without being able to offer those additional wages so now that we offer it up front we've been a lot more successful um the other con would be you know just increasing expenses during uncertain times we're facing right now you know that's something on every business um owner's mind right now most companies will be looking for ways to lower expensive expenses however ASF believes that investing into our people is the Smart play today and in the future all right well thank you uh for that test me I think you answered part of my question because you know one of the things that we have been discussing in all of my briefings and it's come up time and time again is thinking about uh that entry level person and are we shutting them out of the workforce if we think about a wage north of uh 20 an hour 18 an hour or even higher and I think you touched on a a little bit but so so in your analysis or what you've seen there's a payoff by having that initial wage higher or do you see that there would be some folks that slipped through the cracks who you know may not have the skill set for that higher wage but if they started at a lower wage could work their way up I I think the trade-off for us has been just paying the higher wage up front and and not um not starting people lower than that 18. we've been a lot more successful just starting at 18. got it and just and and in general I think the incentive process in working with the city you know if you could give us a little context because it is a great Columbus Story American floor source and the expansion that you were going through so just to make sure we get context of folks because you just talk about that large expansion that you guys are are going through I drive down stelter road every day on my way to working one day there was trees and now it's just completely clear and I see the the trucks rolling in in the construction and now when you guys start making traffic on Stelton Road then I'll come and knock on your door and and be upset but if you guys talked a little bit about the expansion and what that means uh for Columbus residents sure so you know with with America's Floor Source we're a company that now the fifth largest flooring retailer in the nation and obviously based out of Columbus Ohio that's that's home um to our owner was born and raised Jason Goldberg and we are currently today we call it the campus which is on the backside of Stelzer there in the industrial center we're in four four buildings and then we have a fifth building over across from the airport just the storing facility so we are building about a 280 000 square foot facility right on Stelzer that we're going to house everything back into one house again instead of being all in all the different locations uh which is going to definitely help help our efficiencies and uh we're really excited about the the new building getting everybody back together and uh you know growing and creating jobs yep thank you again it's exciting councilmember any questions I do Mr Smith right yes may I call you Mike you may please thank you um I have a quick question I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit since you are an employer who is here is I want to get your thoughts around um I thought it was interesting the point that you brought up Justin around the flexibility of allowing for that flexibility can you talk do do you remember that point that Justin made can you can you remind me I'm gonna get the numbers all wrong Justin it was the flexibility I think it was another municipality that gave a flexibility within the terms of like you could fluctuate it's a post 1994 CRA yeah that's a a property tax abatement so there's a pre-1994 um where you cannot you know there's no flexibility to incorporate any of these sort of wage thresholds and there are some communities in the market uh here across the 11 counties that we're in um that obviously fall within that but then there are others that have created post 1994s which give them the flexibility if they so choose to implement some sort of wage threshold to be able to be considered for let's say just a property tax abatement and I think I the way that I understood it and maybe I this was my own misunderstanding around it but just that instead of saying this putting a stake in the ground and saying it is 18 or 20 that you could fluctuate between that's what you're saying correct sure yes okay I should add coffee before this meeting yeah so Mike back to you just and I know that you you kind of said this around you just would want to go for the higher you see the benefits of it so you may I may you may have already answered the question for me but just want to get your perspective as especially um you know as a like a growing business right the implications and you're seeing the um the the other side right of how this actually saves you because you're getting more qualified employees are staying on you're not having that Gap in your Workforce but can you just talk about you know the difference between if we said here's a flexibility you can go here's at least the threshold you can go up from there or just kind of putting a stake in the ground again I know I'm putting you on the spots yeah I mean you know like I said before with with us um I definitely think there needs to be a threshold so everybody's at least at that that number but you know to have flexibility and incentives to maybe go higher would be great I think it would be very beneficial thank you I know you're not the politician here so I wanted you to do this I appreciate that honest answer okay thank you councilmember and thank you Mike again um for for being here and for your testimony uh and just again Northeast Columbus District Five if you look it up on the map great place to invest and grow so there you go um at this at this time we'll move in uh to public comments or any comments online I'm looking at my staff okay no questions or comments uh so you know this is one of those wonky uh policy subjects right that a lot of folks it's hard to dive into but we wanted to make sure that we had a robust conversation a well-rounded discussion so thank you uh to all of the speakers who came uh out today you've given us I think a lot uh to to think about uh as a council and I'll just close with my closing statements and then councilman I'll let you have closing statements as well you know through this entire process one of the things that I have been saying to my staff and team and what I've been thinking about is uh you know this policy when we talk about wages and we talk about housing we talk about Transportation they're not silos and so we really have to think about how is our policies dovetailing into one another how are they complimenting one another earlier this Council through chair favors leadership amended and changed our requirements around affordable housing right that floor for us now is 60 Ami and so for me when I think about this then that's where our wages should be right if we're building housing at that price point our wages that the jobs create should be at that price point as well and so we need to be thinking about how do we make sure uh that we are building the blocks and this council is thinking about that holistically that this is not simply something that sits alone by itself absolutely we need to pay folks more and but at the same time when we pay them more there are still other uh shortages in our region that we have to think about Transportation child care costs housing costs Education costs and so those are things that are top of mind for me as we go into this final stretch and what our next steps are as we deliberate as a council and I and bring forth a final recommendation so again I want to thank uh director Stevens uh director of the Department of development deputy director Quentin Harris Hannah Reed and the rest of their team for all the work that they have put in on this and have really leaned in uh during this process so I really appreciate your work uh before we talk about next steps council member uh barosso de Padilla any final remarks from you well first of all I want to thank you chair Banks and for the conversation this evening and I think um you know we had we we ran together and we often talked about just intentionality and also providing a platform to really educate folks whether it's always here right it's living online so we can always point back to this even if people in their busy lives couldn't tune in today or come down to council this is always there for them so I appreciate the intentionality behind this process I appreciate all of you being here and being good partners I also want to just Elevate I mean I think you know it's it's interesting because I think we can talk all day about lots of things I mean at the end of the day people just need to make more money right like the world is more expensive and they need to make more money and I know that that is not a sophisticated um theory behind how we do that but it it is the end goal like they just need to because we need to um people need that in order to literally live in order to survive to pay rent to have a car to to get by every day and so um so I I think we just need to figure out how we can make that possible and in all the ways that we can and so that's my first thought the second thing is and I want to thank um you Mike for being here today and for representing a company that I think it's important for us to also Elevate companies that will go the extra mile right whether it's for showing up and investing in their people whether it's companies like Rogue or other companies within the um this is the dangerousness of like naming people because inevitably you're going to get someone but just using them as an example of you know you're making an investment in a community and you're saying we're going to go the extra mile even though it's going to cost us because at the end of the day it's good business right because is when fundamentally when you invest in people and communities it will pay you back in dividends and so I think that we need to start changing this idea of like people do business in Columbus no you do the business of Columbus and like those are the good partners that we want here and that's who we want to attract to our city and to our region and so that's why you know having conversations like this and having folks really understand that we are really trying to live our values of um centering on our people and families and their prosperity is important and making that known to folks who want to come here um that this is who we are as a city and you know I think we talk a lot about the Columbus way to me that's the definition of the Columbus way so thank you thank you council member for that in always putting our families Center in the discussion I think for some for some newbies we did a good job tonight I agree go District five and eight that's right that's right so next steps in this in this process this is our final hearing on the wage threshold what we will do now as a council is continue to receive feedback continue um to lean in and listen to folks so if you have thoughts uh if you uh want to give us information or Advocate please uh email uh my office you can email jpdorval that's at JB as in boy Dorval d-o-r-v-a-l at columbus.gov it is our goal and it's my goal to get the rec final recommendation to this Council and get legislation passed by the end of the year so please look out for communications from official city of Columbus Council Communications as well as from my office when this will receive a first reading and second reading and and hopefully passage I do want to again thank my colleague that's here but also be remiss if I didn't think the rest of the members on this Dice and how they've leaned in president uh Garden president pro Tim Brown councilmember dornes councilmember and councilman marimi for their support and for them leaning in during this process as well so with that that concludes today's hearing and thank everyone for being here have a good evening