The following is intended to provide an overview of policy positions of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce on issues that may come before the Virginia General Assembly. These positions have been reviewed and approved by the Chamber’s Government Relations Committee and the Chamber’s Board of Directors.

CITY OF ALEXANDRIA

Issue: Waterfront

Alexandria’s waterfront represents an opportunity to make the most of one of our greatest assets for the benefit of all our citizens. A vibrant plan is needed to create a welcoming waterfront that reflects our City’s historic nature while presenting opportunities for recreational and business uses. A proper plan should generate additional revenues to benefit Alexandria. The Chamber encourages City elected officials and staff, working with the community, to move forward in an expedited manner to create and implement a Waterfront plan.

Position: Chamber Supports

Alexandria is in a unique opportunity to leverage the significant potential economic impact of National Harbor in Maryland, scheduled to open in part in April 2008. Our community will realize additional revenue in the form of sales tax, restaurant tax, and business license tax.

The National Harbor Collaborative has prepared a list of prioritized recommendations in the areas of safety, transportation, signage, amenities and marketing, among others. Speed is of the essence if the City is to properly plan and put in place the infrastructure and processes to handle the increase in visitors and the services they require. The Chamber encourages City elected officials and staff, working with the community, to move forward in an expedited manner to create implement these recommendations.

Position: Chamber Supports

Alexandria’s strategic plan calls for a business-friendly environment, especially for small business. In order to achieve this, our City’s permitting process needs to be more identifiable and predictable. Among areas which need to be addressed:

• Administrative Approval – An administrative approval process should be established which can be easily administered and understood for certain SUP categories: restaurants, schools, and automobile-related businesses. We also recommend that SUPs should be eliminated in certain areas, or umbrella SUPs used, such as for those in shopping centers or zoned for industrial use.

Position: Chamber Supports

We applaud the success of the shuttle service from the PTO complex to King and Columbus for the purpose of providing access for the 9,000+ employees to shopping and dining in the Old Town area. The Chamber encourages the expansion of a transportation shuttle system to move people in a way that they can take advantage of the diverse economic aspects of our city, such as the National Harbor Collaborative recommendation to add a free shuttle service for visitors, residents and workers along the King Street corridor. In addition, we encourage the City to take advantage of federal grant opportunities in the areas of mass transit.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber continues to support the activity-based budgeting process implemented by the City. We continue to encourage the City to examine the effective salary increases that result from the combination of both COLA increases and merit play.

We also continue to urge the City to limit the growth of its budget, and suggest that growth be no more than 5%. We advocate ongoing analysis of existing programs to realize cost savings and reduce spending so these monies can be redirected in budget growth areas.

Position: Chamber Supports

Position: Chamber Supports

It is the Chamber’s position that the City’s zoning reflect a proper commercial and residential balance in the City, while supporting our limited industrial base. Supporting this position is data from the 2007 Economic Sustainability Work Group’s report. It showed that hotels generate a 93.5% profit per tax dollar (compared to services needed); retail generates 87.1%; and office 83%; whereas condominiums generate only 53.3%, townhouses 36.8% and apartments only 27% profit per tax dollar.

Position: Chamber Supports

While the City of Alexandria supports a real estate Homestead Exemption on a local basis, the Chamber does not support an imbalance in the share of property tax paid by residential homeowners and businesses. According to the 2007 Economic Sustainability Work Group’s report, the City has gone from 25.3% of its tax revenue coming from residential real property and 27.8% coming from commercial real property in FY 1991 to 31.7% residential and 22% commercial in FY 2008.

Position: Chamber Opposes

With the potential for many additional visitors to our City as a result of National Harbor, the Chamber supports programs which would facilitate and encourage guests to utilize the numerous parking garages in the city rather than on-street parking, which can be disruptive to residents, especially in the Old Town area. The Chamber supports the creation of marketing to educate visitors where off-street lots are located, and if possible, a parking incentive program for both the Old Town workforce and visitors without overburdening participating businesses. We also encourage the City to find solutions to meet motorcoach parking needs.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber maintains its position that workforce housing is an important element for employers to attract and retain workers. We realize that more money is needed to address the affordable housing issues than many developers can or will contribute. The “supply” of affordable housing is the real issue that must be addressed, using general funds if necessary to finance such a high priority public need. Furthermore, the City should place an emphasis on fast tracking projects with a workforce housing component.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber endorses the concepts put forth in the Economic Sustainability Work Group’s recommendations, and urges City leadership to adopt and implement the report as a whole, and not segment and thereby dilute its intent towards a comprehensive rededication of city processes towards an informed, collaborative and business-friendly sustainable economic development strategy.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber supports the creation of local policies, including tax credits, to encourage and provide incentives for developers and owners of existing properties to utilize energy-efficient and environmentally friendly building technologies, materials, and conservation measures. Any such policy should contain an educational component aimed at promoting "green" practices and should provide substantive rewards for voluntary compliance with stipulated green building or energy efficiency standards or certification of compliance with a nationally recognized standard. Any such policy should further be administered in such a manner as to make implementation of "green" practices and programs cost-effective for both the local government and the participating developer or property owner.

Position: Chamber Supports

Issue: Improving Transportation in Northern Virginia

Traffic is a serious problem in Northern Virginia and Alexandria. It has been two decades since Virginia’s General Assembly last enacted substantial funding for transportation. The Commonwealth’s unfunded transportation maintenance needs alone tops $1 billion dollars.

We commend the Assembly’s action in 2006 to increase the Virginia Department of Transportation’s budget by $229 million and set aside an additional $339 million for transportation during the next two years, and actions in 2007 to authorize $3 billion in transportation bonds for statewide construction projects, as well as regional funding plans for Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia. We call upon the General Assembly in 2008 to support sustainable funding proposals for transportation solutions, including mass transit that will reduce congestion in our area.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Alexandria Small Business Development Center is a critical component in Alexandria’s economic development efforts. For example, Alexandria SBDC efforts over the last ten years has been a catalyst for increasing sales over $50 million dollars and created or saved over 3,000 jobs. The Alexandria Center, along with all other centers in Virginia, has seen a reduction in funding due to cut backs at the state level. We support the restoration of the $1 million reduction in the Virginia Small Business Development Center funding and strongly believe that the additional funding is an “investment” for the Commonwealth which reaps great rewards as the Centers help create jobs and payrolls for our citizens.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Commonwealth of Virginia is the only state which prohibits any governor from succeeding himself and limits a governor to no more than one consecutive four-year term.

We support efforts to amend the Virginia Constitution to allow Virginia governors to serve two consecutive four-year terms, which we believe will enable the state’s Chief Executive to better lead the Commonwealth.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber supports continuation of tax reform that:

(1) Maintains a rational balance of the tax burden between businesses, residents and users of services, and maintains an equal tax rate for residential and commercial property.
(2) Gives local governments methods to distribute their risk by better balancing/sharing the types of taxes that accrue to localities.
(3) Adjusts rate structures and varieties of taxes to reflect today’s economy and today’s world.
(4) Reduces or eliminates outdated and inequitable tax burdens on businesses, such as the Business Professional and Occupational License Tax.
(5) Encourages the state government to provide sufficient resources to achieve a superior level of service for such fundamental government functions as public safety, transportation and education.
(6) Requires local governments to abate assessments for rent- or income-restricted properties. Currently, the Code of Virginia requires assessments to be at the “highest and best use” or “fair market value.” The Chamber supports requiring local governments to implement some type of grant, deferral or credit program that abates the assessment any properties that are income restricted by state, federal or local regulations. The Chamber also supports allowing local governments to adopt separate appraisal guidelines that recognize higher expense ratios, vacancy rates, and capitalization rates for these rent-restricted properties.
(7) Supports the efforts of the Cost Cutting Caucus, made up of members of the General Assembly from both political parties, with a mission of promoting legislation and government practices which are efficient and reduce costs to taxpayers.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber, along with the City of Alexandria, is very concerned about the impact of the recommendations of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The BRAC decisions are expected to leave 1.5 million square feet, or 8 percent, of the City’s existing office stock vacant. We are not only concerned about the impact on the office stock, but we expect impact on the local businesses that will be affected by the loss of 7,370 Department of Defense and related private sector jobs (7.5% of all employment in Alexandria). These are people who dine, shop, support the businesses in our community. The combined losses in rental revenues, wages, food, and taxes could amount to nearly $400 million dollars.

The Chamber strongly supports efforts by the state government to provide economic development assistance to localities that will lose jobs and experience related impact due to the federal base-closure (BRAC) process.

We also ask the state to explore any and all options in conjunction with federal transportation planning and funding which will better prepare for the expected traffic congestion from this relocation and address commutation needs.

Position: Chamber Supports

The Chamber believes no qualified Virginia resident should be denied access to public institutions of higher education because of lack of physical space. As such, the Chamber supports legislation to accommodate local needs resulting from expected growth in the student population and to focus state support on academic areas for which there is a high demand for graduates, such as teacher training, the sciences and health-care.

Position: Chamber Supports