The devil is in the details

Recently, the Sisters City Council voted to create an enterprise zone.

While many arguments have been raised about the effectiveness of these types of programs, I think that any program that encourages and rewards the creation of year-round living-wage jobs should be encouraged. So if your company is responsible for three or more new jobs in Sisters that pay a living wage - approximately $20 per hour - then you should be eligible for economic incentives.

Unfortunately that is not what the council approved. Under their enterprise zone, if you create one minimum-wage job you are eligible for three years of property tax relief. This system does not encourage job creation, but is rather just a giveaway of taxpayer funds to developers.

Sisters doesn't need more buildings, we need more jobs.

Currently there are more than 120,000 square feet of empty commercial and retail space available. Over 128 residential lots are in foreclosure or owned by the bank, and 15 percent of existing homes are in trouble as well.

Why would we give up city revenues to encourage new construction? For every tax break we give, the city will have less money to pay for city services. When it turns out that Sisters can't afford to offer appropriate services any more, the new businesses will likely leave, once the tax breaks are removed. In the short run, people and businesses who are here now will subsidize the newcomers. In the long run, all we get is more empty buildings.

So what's the alternative?

Instead of encouraging more building, we should be looking at ways to bring more diversified, good paying jobs to Sisters. Let's fill up the empty buildings and store fronts that we already have. Empty buildings downtown make Sisters look blighted, and filling them should be our top priority. Encouraging people to build outside of downtown will just make the problem worse.

To attract businesses to our downtown core, we should be doing everything we can to communicate what a great place this is to run a business, emphasizing our excellent schools, good city services, and quality of life. To attract e-commerce jobs, we should emphasize the availability of downtown rentable space right now, close to shops and housing, not giving tax breaks to those who build further out.

If there is any investment we need now to improve this picture, it's to get more affordable housing in place. As a first step, the city should apply for federal stimulus dollars to build affordable housing on some of the bank-owned and foreclosed, developed lots. This will start a cascade of benefits, as it will:

• Put people in the construction trades to work;

• Help local banks get foreclosed property off their books;

• Help local developers and homeowners by reducing the glut of foreclosed properties;

• Help local businesses by providing more affordable local housing options for their employees;

• Eventually, stop the decline in school enrollment as parents move to town;

• Provide the city with a lasting inventory of affordable housing.

The enterprise zone proposal sounds good on the surface, but once you compare the gains and the losses, it's clear that it takes us backward rather than forward. Instead, let's revitalize our downtown and work on affordable housing. These are lasting steps toward a better future for Sisters.

Brad Boyd is a longtime Sisters business-owner and served as Mayor and councilor for the City of Sisters.