(12/25/2019) Emmitsburg officials discussed payment plans and tax breaks to help future business growth at a special meeting held on December 16.

Discussion was spurred a few months ago when a local business owner approached town staff and the board with his proposal for the construction of a seven to eight million dollar, 90-room Choice Hotel on Silo Hill Parkway next to U.S. 15. The potential builder came to the board requesting the minimization of water and sewer connection fees. After much discussion in November, town staff worked to bring forth a proposal to Commissioners that would help not only builder, but also future property and business owners.

Based upon the Sleep Inns' water usage, the town is looking to change the number of required taps for all such new businesses. Current hotels use less water and less electric, noted Town Planner Zach Gulden. "Changing the fixture count correlates to the number of taps needed, and with the change, it brings [the newly proposed hotel] to 20.4 taps for water and 20.4 for sewer."

With this in mind, town staff developed a plan, modeled off of the city of Brunswick that would include a five-year payment plan for water and sewer tap fees. Qualified applicants must pay at least 25% of the total sewer and water connection fees upon submittal of the zoning permit application and the remainder must be paid in equal quarterly payments. In order to qualify, a minimum of 30 combined water and sewer taps are needed for a business.

Originally the hotel builder would have paid over $700,000 in water and sewer fees, but with this new proposal he would save about 60%, and his fees would be cut down to approximately $300,000. Additionally, the town is proposing to adopt a small business tax credit model that would give business owners even more savings.

The builder was present at the meeting and spoke to Commissioners and staff noting a request for an additional $69,000 discount. "Although it is admirable the amount of work that staff and the Mayor has put into making it feasible, the discount structure is where we differ. If we were to consider a little higher discount amount, which would be more in line with Brunswick, it would fall more in line with the feasibility of building a Choice Hotel," stated the builder.

"We have to balance the here and now in the community… if we adjusted this any further, we would have to see a certain increase in our taxes within our community and there are some folks who are hanging on by their fingernails, and we are trying not to marginalize people by that. I think we have made a significant action towards good will by modifying our rate that was not under consideration before," stated Commissioner Tim O’Donnell. "This is as much as we can give without increasing taxes," agreed Commissioner Cliff Sweeney.

The proposal will be brought back to Commissioners during a future meeting for further discussion.