1981-06-29 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special session Public hearing re: Proposed hotel/ conference center on Vinegar Hill TAKE NOTICE 6/29/81 A special meeting of Council will be held Monday evening the 29th of June inst, at 7:30 p.m. o'clocl. CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS Second reading, appropriation amending Community Development Block Grant funds Public hearing on proposed Vinegar Hill/hotel conference center Executive session to discuss matters exempted by Section 2.1-344(a) (I) (Personnel), (2) (Property) and (6) (Legal) of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. BY ORDER OF Kathleen Roletter (signed) Clerk Francis L. Buck (signed) President COUNCIL CHAMBERS - MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1981 council met in special session on this date with the following members presenn: Mr. Albro, Mr. Buck, Ms. Gleason, Dr, Hall. Mr. Conover was absent during the public hearing on Vinegar Hill due to conflict of interest. He joined Council at the end of the public hearing. Council held a public hearing on this date on the proposed Vinegar Hill hotel/conferenCe center project. Mr. Bob Stripling, Assistant City Manager, first explained the proposed project, its anticipated funding sources and revenue returns and the preliminary design concept. He described the project as including a first class ~otel with 250 rooms for a cost of $10 million, a conference c ~enter seating 1,000 people for a cost of $2.5 million and a parking garage with 700 spaces for a cost of $3.5 million. The private gevelopers would be responsible for financing the hotel at $10 million and the City would prppose to use pubiic money to finance Ithe parking garage and cnnference center at $6 million. Mr. Sltripling said the sources of revenue for the public financing of Ithe project would be ~real property tax increase of about six cents per hundred dollars of property value and a doubling of the present 3% transient lodging tax, otherwise known as the room itax, which is imposed on people who stay in motels, hotels and other transient accomdcations in the City. Following Mr. Stripling's presentation, Mayor Buck opened the public hearing. Mr. Louis Gleason of'-M0eadowbrook Heights Road opposed the tax innrease, though not the project, and present a petition signed by 751 people opposed to the public financing o£ the project. Mr. Ed Olson, a professo= of economics at U.Va, opposed the public financing of the project because in his analysis there was no direct benefit for the taxpayers in such an action. He also criticized the City staff's ~nalysis because it did not compare the project figures to alternate uses of the land but only to the status quo of having no project on the site at all.