Here is the PDC list of developer goodies:

http://www.portlandfacts.com/developersubsidies.htm

Thanks
JK

The sad part is that most of these incentives are not available to small business owners in Portland or those contemplating starting a small (and perhaps not blatantly "green") business venture that would also employee people. Just not enough people from the get-go, apparently.

Yet the small business owners locating in Portland and Multnomah County get hit with the same taxes the larger companies do and some that they don't, (which are subject to an abatement to lure the big company to our neighborhood).

A new business cannot always choose a top of the line building to locate in or build a Leed-certified headquarters that qualifies them for further goodies.

Yet given time, they are the heartblood of the community and -- as we have seen -- some of them remain here longer than the megacompanies that dabble and flee.

there is still a ways to go

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/project_syndicate/2012/02/why_germany_is_phasing_out_its_solar_power_subsidies_.html

Here is the game on a lot of those handouts.

Phase I: Raise the fees so high that few can afford to build or open a business.

Phase II: Offer discounts and wavers to the "right" kind of businesses or developments thereby quasi regulating what would not be legal or politically feasible otherwise.

Rinse and repeat

JK, thanks for posting the PDC list. After reading Jack's post I thought, "wait, there is much more". And what both these list don't mention are all the federal programs that could be added.

The Occupy Movement should attend and get familiar with all the local gimmes as practiced by our own PDC, then do something about it. Working from the bottom can be just as effective as from the top. Of course the media will be right on top of it.

"Phase I: Raise the fees so high that few can afford to build or open a business.
Phase II: Offer discounts and wavers to the "right" kind of businesses or developments thereby quasi regulating what would not be legal or politically feasible otherwise."

Bingo! Jim Crow tactics to bring about "change" through socio/economic engineering.

Of course, the obvious problem with trying to rig the local economy like this is you wind up with businesses that wind up on endless life-support just to keep them from withering and dying a natural death.

Did the "menu" of incentives include the possibility of profitable operation at any point in the future?

Gone are the days when a government's task was to build and maintain an infrastructure for the public good.

tankfixer, not sure that's true....just give things a few more years, they'll run out of money and credit eventually.

57,000 sq ft in the most expensive area of town. Wat a wast for a control center that could be put anywhere.

Why didn't the city encourage them to be in an area that actually needs help? Like Lents?

Of course the answer is that some crony of city hall is likely involved.

Thanks
JK

Get used to it. You guys still have another 313 days of Sam Adams as Mayor, so you have another 313 days of his doing everything he can to hand out toys to all of his friends. That is, when he isn't trying to pack the City of Portland with more friends, so that it's correspondingly harder to negate any of his particularly stupid or expensive policies. Congratulations: this crew is the Portland equivalent of Boss Tweed's crew.

From the O article, it looks like they took TIF money and gave it to the landlord to reduce Iber's rent. So again, we get another pass-thru just like Vestas/Gerding-Edlen.

Of course, we need a vibrant downtown/Pearl/wherever the heck Homer wants to build. Even if it means less money for schools and the rest of town rotting.