Statement of Steven Centi, Director of Development, City of Jamestown, New York
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Oversight
of the House Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing on Tax Incentives for Renewal Communities
May 21, 2002
Jamestown, New York: A Snapshot View
Jamestown, New York is a city of 31,730 people situated in the southwest corner of New York State approximately 75 miles southwest of Buffalo, New York. As the largest City in Chautauqua County, New York, Jamestown serves as the principal urban center for Southwestern New York and portions of Northwestern Pennsylvania. Jamestown lies within a three-hour drive to Toronto, Canada, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cleveland, Ohio, and Rochester, New York. Within a 500-mile radius of the City of Jamestown are over 120 million people representing over 50% of the population of the United States.
Boasting a high quality of life, the Jamestown area is surrounded by bountiful recreational amenities such as Chautauqua Lake, Allegheny State Park, numerous ski resorts, plentiful golf courses, and the nearby Lake Erie. The world famous Chautauqua Institution is only a short drive away. The City of Jamestown also maintains over 540 acres of City parkland and the City-owned Russell E. Diethrick, Jr. Park is the home to the Jamestown Jammers, a Class A New York-Penn League professional baseball team.
Jamestown takes great pride in its hometown heroes of world renowned naturalist and ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson; United States Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg lead prosecutor Robert H. Jackson; New York State Governor and U. S. Senator Reuben E. Fenton; and the first lady of comedy Lucille Ball.
High quality educational institutions such as the Jamestown Public School System, which is the largest in the Southern Tier of New York State; Jamestown Community College, New York’s first community college; and the 115 year-old Jamestown Business College, characterize Jamestown. Jamestown residents take particular pride in their Jamestown High School Red Raiders football team, which has been the New York State Class AA football champions three times over the past eight years.
The Questions:
Why Renewal Community?
Why Jamestown, New York?
These interrelated questions revolve around the current problems facing Jamestown, New York and similar small cities across the United States that did not ride the wave of economic prosperity of the 1990’s. According to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the City of Jamestown has the lowest per capita income of any Upstate New York metropolitan area at $21,208. This compares unfavorably with the national average of $29,469. At the same time, Jamestown has the highest per capita property tax rate in New York State. In an era of declining revenue sources and escalating operating expenses this combination is not conducive to attracting new development to our city.
Jamestown is characterized by aged residential and industrial building stock. According to the 1990 census, over 66% of Jamestown’s residential homes were built prior to 1940 and only about 3% were built subsequent to 1980! The same can be said for the antiquated multi-story industrial building stock that does not suit the needs of today’s manufacturers. In addition, it has been the City’s experience that the demolitions of vacant industrial buildings to make way for new development sites has almost inevitably been followed by costly and time-consuming environmental remediation efforts.
Over time, Jamestown has seen an out-migration of higher paying manufacturing jobs and their replacement with lower paying service-related positions. In the wake of the loss of these positions has been a general deterioration of the City’s neighborhoods as homeowners have either moved from the City or can no longer maintain their properties as they once could. Jamestown has seen a steady decline in population over time as the City has lost over 24% of its residents since 1960. Further exacerbating the neighborhood decline has been the general aging of the overall population as older homeowners move to more convenient subsidized senior units thus leaving their once owner-occupied properties to absentee landlord investors who have not maintained the properties to their previous standards.
Financially, the City of Jamestown suffers from many of the same problems as other Western New York communities. The bottom line is that there is too little revenue to cover escalating expenses. During the most recent FY 2002 budget process, it was confusing as to whether the local media was referring to Jamestown or Buffalo, NY or Rochester, NY as the same issues were at the root of all these cities financial woes. Rapidly rising healthcare costs, losses of taxable assessment, declining populations leading to smaller shares of sales tax revenues, uncertain and less than equitable shares of state supplemental aid, and collective bargaining contracts that literally strangle city resources. Since 1990 the City of Jamestown has lost over $13 million in taxable assessment, a reduction of over 6.5% from the 1990 level of $205,562,660. The debilitating effect of this revenue-to-expense disparity in Jamestown has been an accumulated operating fund deficit of over $1.4 million and the reduction of the City of Jamestown’s bond rating to baaa3, which effectively eliminates the City’s ability to borrow money.
The City of Jamestown’s application for the Renewal Community designation was predicated on turning around the financial fortunes of Jamestown, New York by providing another tool to “level the playing field” and attracting prospective developers to our city. The Renewal Community tax credits will be used in combination with New York State tax credits currently available through the Greater Jamestown Empire Zone (GJEZ) to offset and overcome the perception that Jamestown is an expensive place to develop and own and operate a business. These benefits, coupled with Jamestown Board of Public Utilities (BPU) electric power rates, (which are among the lowest in the nation), will serve to make Jamestown much more attractive as a development destination.
In addition to the aforementioned tax and utility benefits, the City of Jamestown is well poised to move forward, with a wide array of development tools at its disposal. In addition to being designated as one of forty (40) new Renewal Communities, Jamestown is also a national U.S. Department of Justice Weed and Seed Community, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) entitlement community for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Program funding. Locally, low-interest rate development funding is available through the Jamestown Local Development Corporation (JLDC), the Greater Jamestown Zone Capital Corporation (GJZCC), and the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency (CCIDA). Upon his election, Jamestown Mayor Samuel Teresi re-invigorated the dormant Jamestown Strategic Planning and Partnerships Commission that is currently undertaking an aggressive, comprehensive, community-based strategic planning initiative to map out the City’s future.
Jamestown, NY - Renewal Community (RC) Designee: The Future is Brighter
While the aforementioned financial issues represent a challenge to the City of Jamestown, historically the City has shown the resiliency to bounce back. There is much encouragement on the horizon primarily through effective leadership that is aggressively reducing both the size and cost of City and County government as well as an unprecedented level of public, private, and not-for-profit collaboration working together to turn things around. Jamestown’s selection as a Renewal Community is a testimony to the confidence the federal government has in the City’s capacity to leverage the RC benefits with other available incentives as well as the City’s demonstrated ability to work in partnership with the following organizations:
While the above list is not all-inclusive, it represents several of the organizations and initiatives that are currently underway and active in the Jamestown community. Other partners in these collaborative revitalization efforts are the Jamestown Public School System, the Arts Council for Chautauqua County, the Manufacturers Association of the Jamestown Area, the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau, the Fenton History Center, the Jamestown Area Chamber of Commerce, Jobs Chautauqua, the Weed and Seed “Safe Havens at the Jamestown YMCA, Love School, and the 2 XL Youth Center, several local philanthropic foundations such as the Gebbie Foundation, the Sheldon Foundation, the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, and the Carnahan-Jackson Foundation, as well as many local businesses and innumerable local individuals. The collective efforts of all the aforementioned have resulted in an unprecedented level of development in recent years highlighted by the following ongoing projects:
The federal Renewal Community tax incentives coupled with the New York State tax credits and tax abatements offered by the Greater Jamestown Empire Zone, low-interest rate loans available through the Jamestown Local Development Corporation, Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency, and Greater Jamestown Zone Capital Corporation, as well as grants available through the HUD Community Development Block Grant program make a potent mixture of project-related incentives to promote Jamestown as an attractive City to invest in. Through the combined use of this array of incentives our ambitious goals are to accomplish the following:
All of the individuals, organizations, and governmental units who are dedicating their time and energy toward the betterment of the Jamestown community are looking forward to adding the Renewal Community designation and its associated benefits to the other incentives at our disposal to ensure a brighter future for all residents of the City of Jamestown. Thank you for your consideration and confidence in the City of Jamestown, New York.