 I'm going to get my screen share going and then we'll jump right into it. I think for the purposes of today, I think we've kind of gone most of the way down the rabbit hole in this discussion already. So I guess the outlying item that I'm looking for as far as feedback on is where do we go with this affordable housing inclusion and developer contribution component, if we are looking to kind of add that value add to these student housing projects, what does that look like? Let me make sure I've got the right one. And so I think that's really what I wanted to get together with y'all and kind of address today. First off, kind of wanted just to confirm the percentage requirement. If we're asking a developer to include affordable housing units as a component of their project as one of their prerequisites to consideration, what is that baseline percentage that we're looking for? I think we had mentioned a 10% as a possible threshold for inclusion, but I just want to get your confirmation on that. Should the developer opt out of including affordable housing? You know, I know we talked about the possibility of having a developer's contribution fund that they could then pay into and that money could be allocated to the city's affordable housing needs. So I've got some ideas on that I wanted to share with you and get your buy-in on that as well. And then I guess, you know, once that funding is allocated, you know, how it's received, how it comes to the city, I'm assuming that that is something that, you know, would go to the community development department that sounds like Gloria's got an affordable housing fund that could be on the receiving end of that money. We talked about the possibility of, you know, and this is for your consideration, if we wanted to make some of those funds available to outside entities such as the Midlands Housing Trust Fund or Columbia Housing Authority. So I think the recommendation or kind of the way we've got it weighed out right now would be that community development would receive those funds, deploy what they can internally as how best they can and then, you know, if it's council's will and the recommendation of staff, maybe some of those funds could be made to agencies outside the city. And then just revisit some of those additional requirements that we had talked about, that we want to ask developers to include more public parking, that we want public space. I think you all were kind of open to some of those suggestions as possible value ads, but based on the last conversation, it sounded like affordable housing was the focal point. And so we wanted to start there and then just get feedback on the other ones. Well, just to get us going, I think to me, can I have some recent input on some thoughts on that. The set aside, it's something that that I don't know that that would make or break a deal. We probably have to down the road agree on what we would think it's reasonable, depending on what the goals on each project. Tamika. No, I mean, we've talked about this before, Brian, you might recall when we talked about inclusionary zoning, and that, you know, although our state doesn't allow it when we're batting around, we said, you know, there might be some opt in or opt out and allow them to contribute. You know, I think Gloria has something set up. The other thing is there's there's still a push to have the county set up a trust fund. And if it's done, then, you know, certainly that would be a regional effort. So I think, you know, where that money would go could depend on, you know, what is the already set up and and have procedures in place. But you know, I think affordable housing is definitely some, Ryan, I like what you said also about green space, I think we need to keep that in mind as well. But I guess overall I'm wondering, you know, I think when we started this conversation, it was about, you know, whether or not we've incentivized student housing enough to the point where there is no longer a need to have a sense of that specific for student housing. And so whether it's for an incentive for student housing or an incentive for something else. I mean, I think, I don't know, I think that's where I thought we were having a conversation as to whether or not there'd be something that'd be more universal instead of just for student housing, but an incentive program that could cert incentivize any kind of commercial development, multifamily, whether it's for students or not. Yeah. Okay. Councilwoman Davis, I agree with Councilwoman Devine's take on where we were tracking from our last conversation. I do think that we've come to the end of the road of any incentives that need to be given out for student housing specific projects. Now to roll it up to that $30 million, you know, putting this package together, all these expectations, if you're going to take future taxpayer money, you should have a percentage of affordable. You should have some green space component, which you consider the arts, an art fund as well, when it comes to that. I just, I think we need to pull student housing completely out, you know, what makes student housing specific ways they lease, unit types. We just need to get away from that and maybe a overreaching kind of general housing template for that qualifies for this $30 million incentive takes into account those three things, but I believe we've got too many student housing incentive that projects right now and we need to get away from it. It's great that we offer such wonderful residential options for our students. Now we need to set our sights on creating that economy to keep them here in their next layer of residential offering market rate apartments. Councilman Davis and Councilwoman Devine, that's just kind of where I'm at and that's where I thought we were tracking with this conversation. I mean, the policy that we have in place as is, is open for commercial development. So, you know, multifamily mixed use, I mean, really the major threshold, the major limiter there is the $30 million investment number. I think we have had, you know, a number of these predominant number of student housing projects that have been the ones to take advantage of it so far. You know, probably the easiest way to tackle that without pulling it out all together and creating a separate side program is, is I think, you know, we can amend the current resolution that we have in place for the overall project and add in some additional caveats that place, you know, additional requirements on student housing separately. I think those, those might be the two paths would, would either be to create a separate standalone program which would pretty much mirror what we've got in place for student housing or to, you know, amend the resolution as is, layer in, you know, a request for affordable housing inclusion or a donation to a developer's fund. I think either way gives you the, I guess, the coverage that you need to put those additional requirements on them to get consideration for the incentive. So let me, let me ask you this, what is, what is the economic development teams? What do y'all think the difference is between student housing and market rate housing? What offerings set aside, set, set student housing apart from traditional apartment developers? What do I think? Offerings, amenities, what, is it the unit design? Is it who they market to? Pretty easy to tell if they're going to be student housing projects, right? Yeah. I mean, the way we defined it at the last meeting is you're, you're either leasing by the unit or you're leasing by the bed, you know, and I think we're comfortable with that as the, the definitive criteria for either you are or you aren't. Okay. So if you, if you do that, you're a student housing developer. If you don't do that, you're a market rate affordable housing developer. Yes. So why do we even use the student housing term? Why, why don't we not, why do we not refer to these folks as market rate affordable housing developers? Because they're, I'm sorry, I'm kind of, I don't know if I entirely understand the question. I think we just need to pull the language of student, just take, take student housing out of it, right? I mean, so, so a traditional apartment developer, if they come downtown and build ones, studios ones, twos and threes, that's an offering that you're going to see in any city in the Southeast. So, so we've, if we take, if we take the student housing component out of it, we don't let them lease by the bed, we don't let them, whatever else, whatever that checklist is, that student housing promotes, then we're back to, now we just have an incentive in place to, to push market rate housing development with whatever layers to qualify for, for whether it's a percentage affordable, sustainably built items like that. I just, I don't see why we keep putting, putting in student housing, even into the conversation. I mean, I, I guess that depends on where y'all want to go with this. You know, up until now, I think that we had talked about, well, we didn't want to completely take student housing out of the equation. But, you know, given the amount that had come, come, come online, you know, if we wanted to consider future projects, we wanted to make sure that there was an additional public benefit that was required for those to get consideration. I mean, if, if the will of council is that, you know, we just- So, Ryan, to that point, though, let me ask this kind of to take further what Mr. Brennan is saying, though. And this is kind of what the mayor was saying. If we have this, but we don't, you know, we, we take out that it's quote for student housing, there's nothing that would prohibit a student housing developer to apply for the incentives if they meet the criteria. So, I think it kind of helps if, if it's more universal. If it's a student housing developer and they meet the criteria, then they still can apply for it. But I think the way we've gotten down this rabbit hole is that there is either in practice or in perceive that we have, we have created incentive just for student housing developers. And that is why we have gotten to the point where we're getting to the point where there might be a saturated market and or a lot more housing that is not necessarily compatible with long-term growth of the city. So I think what you're saying is, you know, we don't want to, we don't want to discount it. And I agree with that, you know, if there's a right developer who comes to the table, but it's not specifically for student housing developers. And so why not just say this is the incentive. And then if a student housing developer wants to bring it forward, if they meet the criteria, then they still can have, they can have access to it. But it's not perceived that it's targeted just to incentivize that type of development. I think that's where we were trying to go with the recommendation here is, you know, can a multi-family developer with a $30 million project or can a mixed-use project or a commercial project that meet $30 million apply right now, just as they could have over the past year? Absolutely. If there's concern about student housing and we want to bump up their criteria to receive that consideration, that's fine. What do we want that additional consideration to be? And I think that's where we have been trying to go with this, with you want to ask them to do a percentage inclusion in their project or to make a contribution. Otherwise, if it's just a standard project as is and they come in and they're not, they're not adding that additional public benefit, then we're not willing to consider it. So, I mean, that's dependent on how do y'all want, how do y'all want to do it? Do y'all even want to consider, you know, continue to consider student housing going forward or do you want to consider it with the caveat that they have to bring more value add to the table than a standard project? That's where we need, are looking for the clarity on. But that, I think that, I'm sorry, go ahead, Councilman Davis. No, I was just going to, but from my, at this point, at the end of the day, I think we're saying we want an atmosphere where affordability is always taken into consideration. That is a basic need in the city right now. I don't, of course, and how do you, how do you marry that? And, and also, I have a strong market for, for market rate housing also. That's, you know, you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Are you all wanting an incentive at all? Not for student housing. Right. Yeah. No, me personally, I'm a no vote for that. But I guess, Ms. Wilson, what I was saying is that, yeah, I don't not, not just for student housing. I do agree that, you know, if there is a development that meets certain criteria that it's market rate and, you know, but we want to bring that development downtown, we need to have a mechanism that allows us to incentivize it. So that's why I was trying to push for why are we doing something that either in practice or in perception seems like it's targeted towards student housing. We're going to have an incentive and that $30 million is a threshold. And we want people to contribute to, you know, more affordable housing, green space, whatever, put something in place that will, will be able to be applicable in any of those situations. Right. Right. You figure out a way to get both, but you still want to be able to incentivize, incentivize affordable housing, which is in fact a need in the region really, not just the city. And are you okay with any of those other type developments, not student housing developments, having certain benchmarks that they meet in order to get the incentive, but then in addition to whatever, if the incentive has something to do with taxes being deferred for the time, is it that you are wanting to still build an affordable housing fund like we were attempting to do with the student housing previously? So and I don't, I wish we had that information around like how much have we, how much has the fund built up? That may be, I may have to pull that from or get Jeff or some of them to pull it. Missy may have it or Gloria. And is that, is that been, that has been set aside over the period of six, eight projects that have taken advantage of this student housing incentive? It should have been Jeff shaking his head, but that was the, that was the direction that council gave previously because I know. I know we've had discussions on it. I don't, we can go back. I'm not aware of where the property taxes that came in off of those that became a fee have been put into some sort of a fund, but I could be wrong. I will have to go and check that, check that. Jeff, you know, moving forward, correct me if I'm wrong, Tamika? That was a recommendation. Yeah, that was a recommendation. I'm not sure that, you know, if Jeff is saying that he's not aware of the process being set up. And I doubt we did that, but that was a recommendation when Gloria did her presentation, maybe two or three years ago, we talked about the different things that we could do to start setting up in a fund to incentivize affordable housing development. Yeah. And Miss Wilson, if I may, I think that was one of the options talked about. If you recall, I got some funds from Revolving Loan to help with affordable housing projects, which is part of how we've made commitments to some of the projects that had submitted for the state housing funds. I don't believe we've set aside any of the tax increment, but I know Jeff is looking at it. I don't think that was a recommendation or one of the options that was being considered at that time. Money we have set aside, though, came from the Revolving Loan. There was, yes, there was some funds set aside, but I believe that was what Miss said, but did that not get spent on something else in the past year, or is that still sitting out there? It's committed on projects that may receive a Lytec award, but it has not been spent yet. Well, why don't we see what's in that part number one and two? I sound like on the on the back end of this discussion, we're going to have to take into consideration affordability either way, because those are some of our goals as a city, as a region. We're going to have to figure out a way, no matter how how much quality you have in the project, affordability becomes an issue for a number of people who live here. You know, to add on to that, we've had conversations about the importance, what a difference great property management makes in a lot of the developments, multifamily developments in the city and moving forward, let's layer in expectations of property management. If that's something that you and I, we've all seen, that makes a big difference in the quality of life of the residents. I think we could conceptually end with something and get to that point. I'm thinking here, Ryan, are we taking you off track? We'll get it coming out of the starting gates here. It's definitely a different direction than I had thought we were going on, but I mean, I guess the quick and easy way to kind of answer and resolve it here, you know, is, you know, given the, we've got the commercial development incentive program, do y'all want to take student housing out of that as an eligible use for that program? Previously, I think I had heard we might be interested in keeping it in, but with adding, you know, additional things that they would need to bring to the table today, it sounds like y'all may just not have interest in continuing to incentivize those. I mean, if that's the case and you want to remove student housing, this is a pretty quick and easy discussion from here on out, and we would just prepare an amendment to the resolution for council to approve if y'all don't want to incentivize these anymore. Well, and I will say, I don't think we're all in the same exact place. What I don't want to do is target student housing projects for the incentive, but if it meets the criteria, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan, we've talked about this before, all of these have to come to us for approval. So we can do it on a case-by-case basis. I think there were two things that, for me, number one, the communication to the affordable housing developers at the very beginning, or not affordable housing, the student housing developers at the beginning, that this wasn't just, hey, we know we meet these criteria, we're checking off, we're going to get this incentive from the city. But two, making sure that there was these additional thresholds, I am not inclined to say we need to be approving a ton of student housing options, but also I am not at the place that I want to take it out as a permitted use, because I think that there may be something in the future that we deem appropriate. So as we move, we need to, we ought to approach it on a case-by-case basis. But right now, the only projects that are eligible are the student housing project, except as far as that already sunset, that portion. That version of the program was 2016. The version that we have now is wide open to commercial development. It can include multifamily or mixed use, you know, really any type of commercial development that hits that $30 million benchmark. I think what you have seen, though, is that there's this perception that we still have this student housing program in place, because they've been the predominant amount of people that have applied for it and used it most recently. But if mixed use or a multifamily developer comes in right now that's doing market rate apartments, they can qualify for the program just the same. I feel like it's kind of just a perception of people see who's receiving the incentives recently. Right. And that's why I said in practice or perception, I don't think it's widely known, probably because of the previous iteration of the ordinance, but I don't think it's widely known that other developers, and then it doesn't even have to be market rate. I mean, this seems like it could be attractive for affordable housing developers. And being able, if they have a $30 million project, which they could likely have one, is that something that they could apply for? And I don't think they know that. So that's a wonderful stat. Yeah, if you stack this on the other state tax credits they get, then you're, yeah, it's a home run. Yeah. I guess I'm just trying to understand your ultimate goal when it comes to affordable housing and some type of fund to board those to be used because we can, we late of late have gotten so many requests from those particular developers for gap financing and that sort of thing. So I was just trying to understand where are we trying to take this incentive even a step further to say, okay, what commercial developer who's doing whatever project, some for this benefit, you also have to commit to XYZ to go into some type of affordable housing fund for the city because that is what you all have as you've identified as being a priority and an issue of affordable housing projects in the city. So I just wanted to make sure I'm told to understand in the for an incentive, what are we getting for doing that? I think just encouraging the growth and development of the city. I think we're going to come to a junction where we're going to have to make that decision. But looking back at I think what Ryan's going and his agenda, I would suggest that we let him go through that in terms of affordability versus market rate discussions. Ryan, why don't we do that? But we'll keep this issue on the table. Well, it has to be on a table as we start to shape up some kind of recommendation. And so do you want me to kind of just run through the next slide or two? I've got here real quick and you'll see how it resonates. So my thinking is is, you know, we've got this program out here. We can take the student housing component out to the side and say, all right, if you want commercial development incentive, we're still willing to consider that on a city basis. But you either have to include a 10% inclusion within your project. So if it's a 100-unit project, they'd have to do 10 affordable units. And they can't all be studios. I mean, we would like to see that mix balanced out across the bedroom mix. Or the other model we looked at was the developer contribution, which would be a dollar cost assigned per square foot to their development project. So say you have this developer that comes in, they won't consideration for the incentive. Say it's $1.50 per square foot. And they've got a proposed project. I kind of just modeled something real simple out here with 200,000 square feet of space in their project. This doesn't include parking. You've got a 200,000 square foot project. It's $1.50 per square foot developer's fee. If it's student housing and you want to be considered for the incentive, that means it's $300,000 that you have to contribute to the city's affordable housing fund. I think the good part about this and the why you see it done in other communities such as Alexandria, Virginia, Austin, Texas, Seattle, and something even Gloria kind of agreed to when we spoke about this was it gets the money upfront. So you don't have to wait for it to be complete. You get the cash upfront. The developer has to, or they don't get their certificate of occupancy. And so right there for the approval for them to get the incentive, they make a cash contribution towards affordable housing and boom, the city has access to that. And then at that point, community development, or if we decide to delegate some of that money out to other outside agencies to help with that, it's there. It's available relatively early on in the process. Right now, waiting on those tax fees to kind of come in, you have to wait for that money to accrue on the back end. And that's going to take time for that affordable housing, at least two to three years per project for that affordable housing money to become available. So that's kind of where we took it, as far as you can either include it in your project or you can pay into this fee. That's answering my question. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Can I, Brian, can I get you to go back? Maybe two slots? Okay, so like right here, where we have in here is this confirmed setting of 4% of 10% for future consideration by city council for student housing projects requested. So this is kind of what I was talking about, like why if, you know, if there is a, this isn't just for student housing projects and where this incentive is going to be available. Shouldn't we just say projects? Because this could be a multifamily project that's not targeting student housing. Anything through the program? I agree with you. I mean, it can be if that's a layer that we want to include, you know, the reason that we originally, you know, put the program out there was, you know, we understand that we have, you know, property tax challenges here in the city and we were just kind of really trying to open the base of that pipeline open for, you know, more development. Right, but our property tax challenges are for everybody, not just student housing projects. So I think that's the point for me is if we say this is open to any project and what we, but what we signal to people sometimes is that we want student housing. And so I think you have developers who are not thinking that, you know, I have a mixed use deal or I have a, you know, multifamily deal that's $45 million and I've got to figure out how to make it work. And they don't know that this is an option. So we're trying to address the tax issue. That's the issue for everybody, not just student housing projects. Yes. Okay. And so I mean, if that's part of the issue that we're running into, you know, maybe that's just a marketing and a messaging thing that we need to maybe clarify from the city side that, hey, this program is available and it is out here and it's not dedicated towards this one product type. And if that's where we're running into a challenge, we'll be glad to work with, you know, people in the development community and make sure that we're clarifying what this incentive is really for at the end of the day. Okay. We could let them all meet on that. I understand Tameka's point and I understand what you're saying. So you want to continue? We'll have to come back to that. And all of that's taken under consideration at the end of the day. Chairman Davis, don't we have to decide whether to take a recommendation for eventually of this affordable housing fund? I mean, that's something that needs to be, we're not going to decide on that today, but that is something that we have to work with Ryan and staff on on how to shape that and what, you know, I'm with Tameka. I think everything that goes through the $30 million incentive portal should contribute, you know, one time or maybe annually. I don't know how that would break down, but that needs to be considered. Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say, I agree with you, but, you know, we also have the last force out there that's likely going to come back to us with some recommendations also, right? Tameka? Yeah, the task force is going to bring support several recommendations. So I mean, this is likely going to be one. And so I don't think it prohibits us from moving forward because it's something that's already, you know, there to allow it to move forward. So kind of out buying some suggestions with inclusion, what a developer's contribution fund may look like, you know, here's the example. Just real quick, simply modeled out, you know, and then if we were asking for, you know, student housing to include, you know, other public benefits such as parking spaces, right-of-way improvements, things of that nature, we covered most of these in the last meeting. And I think y'all were open to kind of considering them as, you know, value adds if we consider more student housing projects going forward. I didn't get any indication that y'all wanted to make any of those mandatory requirements. It seemed like there was more interest in making affordable housing a mandatory requirement at that time. So these are just up for consideration. You know, Councilwoman Devine's right, you know, even though we've got a program and a policy in place, all of these are discretionary incentives at the end of the day. They are all voted on on a case-by-case basis. And just because a student housing or a mixed-use project development qualifies to come before Council for the incentive, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily granted that approval outright too. But I will say getting that message out way before you have developers coming in and spending some serious funds, I mean, that's what's gotten us, you know, in trouble in the past is not making that distinction. We don't want student housing, right? And that's fine. If Council doesn't want that, then let's just remove it from the mix or let's add those additional criteria that we want them to bring up front and set the bar high and either they're willing to kind of go over that or they're not. You know, I mean, that's honestly, you know, if we're very up front about that and Council is only willing to consider those with a very high value add or doesn't want to consider them at all. I mean, that saves us time at the staff level from, you know, having conversations and having to go through an application process or a project that you all might not have interest in at the end of the day. So I just, I need to know. Can I add, oh, can I throw this out? And so Will, this is where I am and why I say I'm not willing to say it's excluded. I mean, I think right now, of course, it has been saturated and honestly targeted at the University of South Carolina. But our region, we've got other institutions of higher education now with all this HBCU money coming in and things there may be a need for Allen and Benedict to have some private development closer to their campuses. You know, I have no idea what the long term plans are for Columbia College. And so, you know, what I don't want to do is say, you know, we have this and it benefited one, you know, higher education institution and where, you know, there might be a targeted in need for some of the others. And then we've taken away the incentive. That's a very valid point. I appreciate that. But, you know, I look at it as District 3 probably gets dinged up the most from these developments. And you make a very valid point, Allen, Benedict, in that demand, that need. Absolutely. There's some type of geographic district 3. I don't know that would be that wouldn't be challenged what I'm trying to get at. But, you know, if there if there was some like Mr. Vines saying if there was something that came along that seemed really compelling and would add to a certain part of Columbia versus detract from because it's already so saturated. But I don't know if we can pick and choose, Ryan, that might be a question for legal. Certainly, some districts or some areas might benefit. Whereas probably the majority not so much because we have so many. But can I ask something just to follow up Councilwoman Devine? So let's say a developer does want to come in and provide some housing opportunities for Allen and Benedict. Would you would you see them as a market rate delivery development or the traditional student housing approach of single bed nine months, nine month leases, you know, what we generally see for beds may be more in line with what student developers, student housing developers go for. From what I see happening around the country, especially some of these developers who are targeting, you know, housing around HBCUs and stuff, they're more market rate. I don't know if I've seen that, you know, communal type living. So yeah, I would consider the market rate. And that's why again, I say push this for market rate. And then but I don't want to exclude student housing just in case. And I don't know how the financing it works. But just in case their their financing calls it student housing, but they are more market rate. So I just wanted to be as flexible as possible. But I know that that there probably are some needs, especially with expansion plans that, you know, some of these schools have. Great point makes sense. I do like on the page here where it specifically addresses additional safety and security improvements. But Mr. Brennan, is that should we put a bullet that is more broad about property management? In general, I think when you get down to it, the issue we tend to have with property managers, when they're not doing it well, it comes down to being about safety and security. Right. It could be more, it could be more than that. But I do think that. Two bullet points. Absolutely. Yeah, property management and a safety plan in place. I think don't we require something to that layer already? Developers have to provide, you know, how student housing developers had to provide how they take care of the well-being of their tenants. I don't know that it's been for the last time. Not to the extent that Teresa is kind of articulating, but that's very important. Acceptability is also important, because people tend to have opinions or in some case they say experiences when it comes to safety and security of apartment living, how it impacts the surrounding area. I personally think it's something we ought to always discuss, not that it's something that's going to scare a developer away, but everybody at the end of the day wants to be good neighbors. If you wanted to amend the current resolution with some general language, just to kind of clarify upfront that future student housing projects will have to meet additional affordable housing, safety, some of these other criteria here. I mean, we could add them all in, you know, and let them know that they will be considered on a case-by-case basis subject to discretion of counsel. I think that gives you some blanket language up front without layering too many details in that does clarify for them. We are looking for you to bring in something a little bit more substantial than just the standard project, without taking student housing completely off the table, as Councilwoman Devine said. We may need to add some additional work in a policy process for how we go through these approvals, which would include more information gathering from the developers, and a little more time working with Council as we get information from them to make sure that we're getting the deal that we want at the end of the day. But I think there's enough administrative time where we could, you know, work with the subcommittee here or work with Council in the executive session and really kind of fine tune any of these that come in that we feel add value and want to approve. Okay, Ryan, you want to do some word smithing on that for us for next time? Or you want input from us on that? If y'all are fine with taking that approach, I've already got some language in my head kind of working with. I mean, I can get some amendment language set up in short order. Ryan, have you seen incentives, I guess, requested by ZIP code? I mean, if we're talking student housing, I mean, two, nine, two, four, I mean, could you could you request it that way specifically, or is that just getting down the weeds where we need to consider consider it whenever it comes in? Are you asking if you could like geofence where where these projects could go at the end of the day? That sounds like a wonderful economic development term that I do not know. But yes, it sounds like what I'm thinking. Like a tech term, I just co-opted just now. People in the IT sector will recognize it better than I do. Yeah, I mean, I'll be glad to talk with Teresa Knox and make sure we're good on that, you know, and maybe, you know, some outside economic development council. I mean, you may can do it. As ZIP code, you may even be able to set up a boundary and say, you know, between these. Because I think that clarifies, that clarifies our message. Yeah, we want student housing here. Yeah, we want to avoid the market over here. I mean, off the top of my head, I don't see why you can do it. I want to check and make sure that we would be clear to do it, but I think it's doable. Well, it's something to discuss as you as you craft something for the next meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Ryan, this is Patrick. There may be a couple of options. And because what I was thinking is that if you link it, if you say that it must be within, I don't know, half a mile or however distance to an institution that has no more than 5,000 people, 5,000 students or something like that, that may be another way to do it. So, but you can think of, we can talk and think about, okay, what's the best way, but I think there are certain ways. It's just worth smithing the language you use. I think it's the way. Yeah, because theoretically, I mean, it's the same thing as targeting an incentive towards a business district, you know, there's defined geography that you can do that, you know, and it's not, the developer is doing it in this area, but they are getting a benefit out of it. So, I mean, at face value, I think that's allowable. But yeah, Patrick, I'll be glad to talk with you afterwards and kick that around a little bit. Okay. All right. I think I've got enough to kind of go to work here on work together on getting together just some general amendment language for a possible change to the resolution. And then we can start looking at the possibility of geo targeting or putting these in a defined, you know, district area where we'd like to see more student housing encouraged. And we can get back to y'all soon with some more recommendations on that. And prayers, we can have this resolved by the end of this calendar year. Very good. Any other points on that? No, sir. I'm good. I appreciate y'all. Miss Wilson, if I can speak up for a minute and just, we have been in discussions with the developer of 2221 Divine, and they do intend to request an incentive that is a mixed use project, not focused on students, but I just wanted to remind counsel that that's been part of our discussions all along with that developer. Market rate. All right. Market rate. That's correct. Absolutely. So would they then have there been discussions about them, some contribution into an affordable housing fund? No, ma'am. There's another development and very early, there's another side actually, not even development on downtown, but that has, there's been a lot of student housing developers chasing. And we have been very clear that it is unlikely there will be an incentive coming to a student housing only project that it will need to be a mixed use project that has more than just a focus on students. And that's another discussion much earlier in the conversation, but I didn't want to not acknowledge that that's going on as this is evolving. So though, so just so I'm clear, these, the project like that they're in process would not be, they wouldn't have to adhere to any of these new requirements that we're talking about right now. I think the new project that when I say there's just a side, I certainly think that would have to adhere to any of the criteria of the 2221 divine. We would need to talk through what that looks like. Again, it's market rate, it's not students and it's mixed use. This, the concept of contributing to a fund has not been discussed with that developer at this time. We can certainly do that. And I think they're a great developer of it will bring a quality project, but we have not had that discussion with them. And what would the incentive be they're asking for? The commercial development incentive, which is 50% tax abatement for a project and it says the 30 million dollars. So the same one that were the same incentive that we have on the table is just the council is now through the committee process looking at adding some additional layers to it. Correct. But they haven't because this has been ongoing. I don't guess it would apply to them. Right. Well, it hasn't been brought up to them. We can certainly have the conversation with them, but okay, we're all on agreement on that. So you're Ryan, you're gonna be a little busy, but you're coming back with refinements on where our discussions are now. Right. Yes, sir. Next, and want to go into. Go ahead. Next. Next. We wanted to spend just a couple of quick minutes and give y'all a brief update on the Deloitte technology study. Jeff Ruble has joined from Richland County right upstairs, where he has been very patiently waiting to talk about this. And I just want to talk a little bit about the current status of the Deloitte technology plan implementation and what's going on with that. So turn it over to Mr. Ruble. Just one question. Who's taking the lead in that? We are the county. I met Councilman Davis. I think I could kind of touch on that throughout the presentation. So multiple groups. Certainly, we appreciate the opportunity. It sounds like the county's taking the lead on this. I think it started with us, but it quickly became bigger than us. So just as a reminder, this plan was supported by Richland County, but also the City of Columbia University of South Carolina, the Research Authority, the Central SC Alliance, I-77 Alliance, and Midlands Technical College. So it was a large coalition. I just happened to be the de facto spokesperson today. So I hope you'll accept that. I do want to compliment City of Columbia Council for having the vision to do this. Just as a quick aside, when we started this study, I think we all thought it was going to be a good idea. After doing some research, we realized that it's not just a good idea. It's absolutely essential for this market. So the original conversations, I hope I'm not repeating myself to any of you. I'm kind of old fashioned salesman. Sales is understanding your product and understanding your customer and figuring out how to reach them. I was just smart enough to know that I didn't know my product here in Columbia. I've been recruiting manufacturing my whole career, but I'm a dinosaur and I know if I walk into Blue Cross or Colonial and I ask them what they do, they could tell me and I still wouldn't have a full appreciation for it. So I was thinking, you know, if I'm trying to understand my product, you know, just say you've got skill sets in those companies, what kind of other companies can recruit in here? They're just like them. They use the same kind of people. Is it FinTech? And I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to put it into a framework where we could sell it. So that kind of led us to this study. It was a fairly simple question. What do we have here in Columbia? What are we selling? I think I have a presentation. Ron, should I share my screen or do you have my presentation? What's the best way to do it? Do you have yours pulled up right now or I can get it? I know it's in the attachment. I do have it pulled up. Yeah. And if you'll, let me see if I can share screen here. There we go. Sorry about that. Give me just a second and I'll get it going. So I just prepared a few slides. I was trying to, you know, I don't like scare tactics. I don't like sitting there saying, oh gosh, the sky's falling, but this is data on the Columbia market. So if you notice, we, this is a proportionate, this is how many jobs we have compared to the national average. You notice that long blue line at the top. That's the percentage of computer programmers we have here in this market. And you look at the bottom line and that's the software developers and that's, we have really a deficiency in that sector. So you start seeing what jobs are growing and which ones are declining. The ones that are growing are the ones we don't have and the ones that are declining are the ones we have a lot of. So that's kind of just a simple explanation of what we're seeing. When we hired Deloitte, we brought them in. One of the first things they determined through research of data was as a market we're underachieving, we can do better. One of the areas that we started looking at is, you know, what jobs are being sold after nationally and are we producing those kinds of people? Deloitte ended up making 87 recommendations. I think we know going into it, there's no way we're going to implement 87 different initiatives. I mean, some of them are really outside the scope of our offices. For instance, it was like, we need a signature event here in Columbia, something that put us on the map. You know, whether it's a steeple chase or I don't know what it is, a basketball tournament, we need something to get us on the national map. But of those 87 recommendations, we pulled them down and kind of created some committees with specific actionable items in each of those committees. And I'll discuss those further. So the four groups, incentives, marketing, workforce and innovation. First was incentives. In South Carolina, we do a great job of group manufacturing. Unfortunately, all our incentives are geared toward manufacturing. I've said this a few times to groups, but it's easier to incentivize a pallet manufacturer on Bluff Road than it is a high-tech 100-person engineering center. The incentives need to be tweaked both at a statutory level. We need to go across the street and get them to change the laws, but also at an administrative level. Tiffany Harrison in my office is chairing this committee. She had worked for years at the South Carolina Department of Commerce and specifically in the Council for the Coordinating Council for Economic Development, which is the group. It's all the heads of the different state agencies that approve incentives. And that group is the group that we would suggest need to make some administrative changes. But some of them even are beyond the normal scope of our economic development incentives. For instance, our state education or the startup training program, they have an internal policy that they won't recruit talent from outside the state of South Carolina. You understand their concern. I mean, the Illinois legislators accusing them of bringing people from outside the state to take South Carolina jobs. But on the other hand, if we're going to recruit tech companies, we've got to support them. They've got to find talent wherever they can get it. A second area is marketing. We belong to the Central SC Alliance. We pay them to do marketing. We felt that that was the natural place to do it. There's about three areas I'd touch on. First is targeted marketing. Too often in our state and in economic development in general, we go in with a business card and a good firm handshake and ask companies what we can do for them. I think the future force is more targeted marketing. So going back to what I was talking about before, knowing your product and knowing your customer, we knew we need to do a better job of identifying what companies not only could succeed in Columbia, but could thrive here. There's a group of companies out there that need to be in Columbia, South Carolina. So the key is going in and do targeting and attraction. The second area is talent. Central SC Alliance has been developing a portal. It's a talent portal. It's a way that we can go out to markets outside of Columbia and convince smart, talented young people to move to Columbia. So that's a great website for lack of a better term that helps to convince people that Columbia is the place they want to live. What we're doing is we're identifying the top, the most highly sought jobs here in the town, what employers are looking for. And we're going out and we are actually, the term, I think Ryan mentioned geofencing, we're going out looking at markets where there's a preponderance of those types of skill sets and we're trying to recruit those people to Columbia. And then last is generally, I think I mentioned it before, place marketing. One of the big challenges we have is people just don't know Columbia, South Carolina. They don't have an opinion good, bad or indifferent. We need to do a better job of place marketing. And that's been a sell for me at Richland County. Those folks don't want to be known as Columbia. It's an even bigger challenge across the river in Lexington County. The last thing they want to be called is Columbia, South Carolina. But the bottom line is, that's how we need to market ourselves. We've had some initial conversations, but those are broken down with Lexington. We're going to need some private sector leadership to help get this through. A third area, and this is a big one, is workforce. What we found is there's very little structured research going on with University of South Carolina and our largest employers. We've done two or three things. We've done a survey and I'll touch on a few of the results there. We're working on a round table and we're starting a program to better identify and recruit transitioning military workers into the market. So we did the survey. These were the folks that responded. We found that that transitioning military is a hot topic. It's not that we haven't done it in the past. I think a lot of companies around here have recruited transitioning military into manufacturing plants. We haven't done it for IT workers. So this is a new initiative for us. We think it can be successful and it can help make our existing companies more successful. A second area, well, this is the actual program that we would use. What we're proposing to do is seed fund this on the front end to get some of our IT companies to use this program, see if it works, and then if it does, then they pay for it going forward. But in the short term, we want them to at least give it a try. And then last is third party. I mentioned structured research. What we're hoping to do is through this round table, we want to identify the key areas that some curriculum changes, not just at the University of South Carolina but all of Columbia's colleges. So I think there's what five or six here in the market. We want to bring them all in the room along with all the folks hiring tech workers and try to line them up. Another big area of emphasis is supply chain, 4.0. That's a term that we don't really talk about it often, but it's kind of a new trend. Let me give you a couple of examples. Last year, I think it was or two years ago, we were recruited, we were probably the choice for a large aviation company. What they were going to do was come in and build airplanes the way that current automotive industry builds cars. They had taken a 3,000 person plant and had boiled it down to 1,000. So two out of three workers were being engineered out of the process. That project was going forward until 737 fell out of the sky, but that was a real eye-opener for us. If you go out to the Mark Anthony Bruin plant, you walk in the warehouse, we had problems with our permitting folks because they require an exit sign at every so many feet. They require so many bathrooms for every so many square feet. What the Mark Anthony Bruin people told him was, forget it, you don't need people in your warehouse. We don't need bathrooms in the warehouse because nobody works there. All their forklifts are robotic. When they get run down a little bit, they go charge themselves and run right back out on the floor. It doesn't take a real stretch of imagination to look at some huge rooms at Blue Cross, Blue Shield that are doing IT work and saying, okay, what are what jobs here can be automated? And is that something that's going to happen next year or five years from now or 10 years from now? It could happen very fast. That's a real threat for Columbia South Carolina. So one of the things we're trying to do is implement more of this manufacturing 40, which is the AI. It's automating processes. We want to be on the front end. We want to be happening to that trend and not have that trend happening to us. Another area that we're working on is a USDA grant, I'm sorry, EDA grant. So there are 30, $25 million to $100 million EDA awards that are going to come out. We recognize that remiss. I should have mentioned Gary Powers' name a long time ago. Gary's been driving this. Gary spotted this and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, who's leading the charge on this? And nobody was. So we circled the wagons. We got South Carolina Research Authority USC and we are all coming together. It's Clemson USC. The Research Authority will lead it. There's two deadlines, one in October for a $500,000 plan grant. And then there's a bigger deadline for that bigger grant, the $25 to $100 million grant. There's a lot to be worked out exactly on how that would be used, but it's a pretty huge area of opportunity for us. And it's great to know that we're working on it. USC wanted to lead the effort, but Clemson objected. So the South Carolina Research Authority is going to be the tip of the spear. Last area I touch on is innovation. Lee McElwain with the South Carolina Research Authority led this effort. We looked at the data and we found out that compared to our peers, we're just not achieving, we're not starting enough companies here in this market. We kind of had a traditional approach to it. We drew up an RFI. We sent it out to, I don't know, five or six of the biggest consulting firms. They came back with big six-figure numbers right around $2,000 each. And somebody said, hey, have you told this guy Chris Hively? And we said, never heard of him. So we got him on a Zoom call and Gary's fairly rigid. Gary said, you didn't respond to RFI. And he said, you're right. I didn't because you guys don't know what the hell you're doing. And we said, that's our guy. So long story short, Chris Hively got his graduate degree here at University of South Carolina and GIS way back in the day. He started his own company called MapQuest and sold it for $1.2 billion. He has helped communities across the country reinvent their entrepreneurial ecosystem. He volunteered to come down and work for Columbia. He said, I'm a game cop. So he came in at about half the price. Right now, the folks funding that are the county, the research authority and University of South Carolina. He's had a big rollout session a few weeks ago. He's going to recommend a bunch of big changes, but we think that this will basically unleash a large percentage of the population that, but for what he calls friction, would go out and start their own companies. And I might mention that this is an inclusive effort. It's not just about one segment of the population. We've left a lot of folks in the sidelines that could contribute to this economy and just haven't been included for one reason or another. This is an effort to help people all across our county and our city start companies. And that brings hope. And there's data support that supports the idea that it also reduces crime. With hope comes a lot of good things. So that's just a quick update. I'm certainly open to answer any questions. I know we were running over. Thank you for your time again, and I will close out this slide deck. Thank you. Any comments or questions? I've got a question. Councilman Davis for Jeff and Ryan. A very exciting plan that I look forward to the county and city working together to put into place. In the university and the higher education outlets here, what does that look like in y'all's opinion? How do we need to efficiently and effectively work together as economic development entities and all the players in the community? What does that look like? You know, this has been a good first step. What I've discovered, I've been in this job for over six years. Was there a bunch of silos here in Columbia? We need to break those down, start working better together. This is one of the first initiatives where we've all gone in together, put money into it, created groups to actually get something done. You know, there's been suggestions that we consolidate different groups around town. Probably that's not a bad idea. I mean, if you look at the private sector here, it's not so large that we can afford to be inefficient. There's a lot of overlap, duplication. If we want to be competitive, and it's an extremely competitive world out there, I would suggest to you that we need to be smart. And duplication and overlap and competing entities is not smart. So absolutely, we probably need to have those conversations. That's just my humble opinion. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm impressed with your presentation, but this kind of tells us that we can go where we need to go as long as we know where we're going. I just want to thank you, Jeff, for that. And I think that's great. I know you mentioned about private sector assistance and making sure that the governmental entities are brought together around this. I just wanted to know what are your thoughts, what's next steps on those conversations and buying from everybody in the region so that we can start moving forward. There's a number of initiatives that we started, but as they play out, they're going to require funding. And I don't expect all that funding to come from the public sector. There are entities around town that would directly benefit from this, bringing more research out of the university and the corporates, corporate America, to a better recruiting plan. Those groups need to be involved. They are, I mean, they're going to be part of that roundtable, but we need them to be involved financially as well. We need to all pull together on this. For instance, let me give you an idea with the Chris Hiveley plan. I think they'll end up being a new incubator. It might not look like the old incubator, but I think there's going to be something that's going to look a little different than what we've done in the past. They'll need to be more programming. USC, while they were willing to take the lead, what we've determined is that's probably not the best path forward. That's not going to achieve the results we need. So we're going to need other folks, private sector and public sector, to step up. I've cautioned Ryan. I'm going to come back with a ask at some point. So let me just caution you guys in general. As soon as we can add all this up and come back with a single ask, we're going to try to do that and not just wear you out with repeated trips to the well. Very good. Any other questions? Thank you. Enjoyed it. Ryan, I guess we'll be hearing back from you, but coming back to you individually and giving you our thoughts on where we're going and what you shared with us today in terms of what we need to do. Okay. Absolutely. We'll work with you all and get something pulled together post-hace and I think try to put a final nail into this so we can have the housing and incentive work ready to go forward. Yeah, those things, I'm hoping we can fast track it. I've got a good idea where to go next. So I appreciate the feedback again today and I think we're good. Any other comments, guys? Councilman Davis, thanks for running a smooth meeting. We really appreciate it, sir. Yeah, right. Tabika. Nothing, y'all guys. Have a great day. Thanks so much, everybody. Thanks to Richard and staff.