‘Competitive & Aggressive’ approach to attracting new business

Part of the latest addition of the City of North Bay’s Official Plan designates the land around the Jack Garland Airport as an Airport Industrial Park.

This means over the next 20 years, plenty of new businesses could potentially come to the Gateway City. However, it is not as easy as it sounds – the City plans on offering incentives for prospective companies looking to open their doors in North Bay.

“To make ourselves competitive – to attract business here – we have to provide incentives,” Councillor Dave Mendicino said. “In this day and age, any company – whether it’s commercial or industrial – they’re looking for the best bang for their buck.”

Possible incentives would include “building fee rebates”. One example given was a rebate of $10,000 on a 20,000 square foot building.

Perhaps the biggest reason for businesses to come to North Bay is the Property Tax Rebate; under said rebate, 100% of taxes would be refunded in the first year, followed by 67.7% in the second and 33.3% in the third year of operation. The companies will be responsible for all taxes beginning in year four and the remainder of their tenure in North Bay.

“We’ve got to show them there’s a benefit to coming to North Bay -- I think we can do that,” Mendicino said. “I think this plan will allow us to not only be competitive, but aggressive.”

This issue will be brought back to Council next Monday to be officially adopted, and the wheels could begin turning as soon as June 1st of this year. However, do not expect things to change immediately.

“This is going to be a long-range project,” Mendicino said. “But if right off the hop there’s a lot of interest…we’re ready to move on that.”

Mendicino said if the City attracts one or two new businesses per year, he’ll consider it a success, however more than that would obviously also be acceptable.

“Certainly -- in an ideal world -- three or four (businesses) would be better,” Mendicino said. “But one or two a year is certainly something that over time would grow our industrial tax-base and provide a lot of jobs here in the city.”