Sen. Doug Berger, D-Youngsville, speaks to five people in the commissioners’ chambers at the old Vance County courthouse Wednesday night.
An important piece of legislation for the regional hub project advanced in the General Assembly on Wednesday, state Sen. Doug Berger said during a town-hall-style meeting he held at the Vance County Administration Building that night.
Berger said he hopes that Senate Bill 867 will become the first significant legislation he introduced to be enacted. (Update: On Thursday, the bill was placed on the calendar for the full House for Monday.)
The importance of the bill has nothing to do with its length. It’s just a couple of sentences, and the change it makes to the North Carolina General Statutes is as simple as can be: the number 40 becomes 99.
But Berger said the effect is crucial to the hub, the economic development project in which Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties are working together to create a series of industrial parks, for which the counties will share the costs and the benefits.
Under Berger’s legislation, local governments that work together on industrial parks could operate under an agreement for up to 99 years instead of 40. That change would give each jurisdiction more time to reap the benefits of the hub, which is important because no one knows how long it will take to build out all of the hub sites.
The Senate passed the bill on a 43-0 vote March 31, and the House Ways and Means Committee sent the bill to the full House with a favorable report Wednesday.
The bill does not address a more difficult jurisdictional issue: whether the state economic development incentives available in Vance and Warren, two Tier 1 counties, should be available at the hub sites in Tier 3 Granville and Tier 5 Franklin counties.
Without such legislation, two businesses could open almost across the street from each other near Vance-Granville Community College, one on the Vance hub site and the other on the Granville hub site. But the employer in Vance would be eligible for a $12,500 tax credit per job created, compared with $3,000 per job in Granville.
On the other hand, with such legislation, Warren County’s Tier 1 status could be used to lure businesses to Franklin’s hub site, increasing Franklin’s per-job tax credit from $500 to $12,500. Warren would get some financial benefits, but the jobs created would be largely out of reach of Warren residents.
Berger said legislation to settle those issues is on hold until the counties can agree on what they want.