The Salisbury City Council is looking to cutback a key development fee in Mayor Jim Ireton’s proposal for revitalizing downtown.
Ireton’s plan would set aside up to 317 credits for water and sewer connection fees.
But last night Council President Jake Day says he wants to make around 100 credits available for downtown projects leaving the rest for employers to bring in high paying jobs.
These fees are called equivalent dwelling units or EDU’s and run around $33-hundred each.
The Salisbury Daily Times reports that Public Works Director Teresa Gardner speculated that the reduction will not affect how many downtown projects take advantage of the program.
She said that there are only 3 downtown city-owned parking lots that could be sold off to developers that appropriate for such buildings as the nearby Holiday Inn which only uses 49 EDU’s.
So Gardner adds it is unlikely that builders would ever use all of them up.