Housing, infrastructure, Five Points development: Columbia leaders chart goals for 2021
As it was for many, 2020 was a trying year for the City of Columbia’s government.
The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped, in a number of ways, how the city does business. Columbia City Council meetings became virtual affairs, rather than in-person at City Hall. City buildings were largely closed to the public, in an effort to help slow the spread of the virus. And the city’s budget was walloped by the fiscal realities of the pandemic, with revenues in the current budget year expected to come in more than $20 million less than prior years.
But while the struggle against the coronavirus rages on, members of city council are continuing to make plans and set priorities for 2021. From bolstering the city’s water infrastructure to pushing development in Five Points to charting a path to more affordable housing in Columbia, several council members recently shared with The State some of the initiatives they’d like to see pushed forward in the new year.
Councilman Will Brennan, who was elected in 2019 to lead council District 3, which includes Five Points, said one of his key focuses in 2021 will be to help make the city’s investment in the building at 2221 Devine St. “the best it can be.”
The city bought the six-story former state office building at 2221 Devine, just off Five Points, for $3.8 million in 2019, with plans to market the building for private development, and make use of the property’s 300-plus parking spaces near the shopping and nightlife district. City leaders suggested the possibility of a hotel being located in the building. But the pandemic has hampered development efforts, Brennan said.
“There were wonderful plans for mixed-use possibilities, retail, a hotel, multi-family (residential), but the corona economy kind of took all that away,” Brennan said. “We are kind of starting from scratch. We want to put the best use to the property, making the most of it. … Making this a game-changer for Five Points is really what I’m pushing right now with (city) staff.”
Brennan said what he would like to see a residential development at 2221 Devine that caters to young professionals and empty-nesters.
“I think there is a big demand for the empty-nester-type residential offering,” the District 3 councilman said. “If we can pair that with a rebound and revitalization of Five Points, that would be amazing.”
Affordable housing and economic recovery
Longtime at-large Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine has affordable housing plans on her agenda for 2021. It’s perhaps unsurprising, considering she chairs the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force, which launched in 2020.
She says she’d like to see the city set goals in 2021 on increasing affordable housing units across the city in coming years.
“I am hoping that, within the first quarter, that there are some preliminary recommendations that come out of the Affordable Housing Task Force,” Devine said. “One of those is that I’d like the city to set an affordable housing unit goal that we’d like to add into the market. … Not just an affordable housing goal, but also a financial plan to get there. I’d like to see that on the agenda for 2021.”
Devine says preliminary numbers show Columbia has a roughly 14,000-unit deficit in affordable housing, and she hopes, through council setting an affordable housing benchmark and subsequent financial plan, that the city can take key first steps toward closing that gap in the next several years.
“I really want city council not just to adopt a plan, but actually say, ‘These are recommendations (from the Affordable Housing Task Force) that we are going to take and we, as a city, are going to commit to implementing these recommendations in a (certain) amount of time,’” Devine said.
Stabilizing the city’s COVID-ravaged finances and funding core municipal services will be at the top of the 2021 agenda, according to third-term Mayor Steve Benjamin.
The mayor also says he is looking to convene an “economic recovery alliance” aimed at helping pull the city and its businesses out of the fiscal doldrums of the pandemic, and identifying new economic trends that have intensified under the cloud of COVID-19.
“We want to do everything we can to recognize the way in which our economy — globally, nationally, statewide and locally — is changing dramatically,” Benjamin said. “We want to try to position Columbia and Columbia’s businesses to take advantage of that. We’ve seen the launch of trends that we expected to take a decade to mature happen almost overnight because of the pandemic. What does it mean for the future of work? What does it mean for certain job disciplines? For retail?”
The mayor also said he also will continue to focus on “21st century policing” at the Columbia Police Department in the new year, and focus on equity via the city’s Commission on the Future of Columbia.
Infrastructure and property tax reform
As for second-term at-large Councilman Howard Duvall, he’s hopeful that federal funding coffers will begin to pry open in 2021 in ways that can help the Capital City.
“My hope is, with the new (presidential) administration in Washington coming in, that there is going to be a bipartisan effort to go back to the infrastructure bill that was talked about four years ago when Trump came in,” Duvall said. “I think the City of Columbia has several projects that I would call ‘shovel ready’ that would take advantage of whatever the Congress votes to send back to local governments for infrastructure.”
A specific project Duvall would like to see get approved for federal funding soon is the establishment of a secondary water source for the city along the Broad River. Columbia is set to receive about $40 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding for repairs to the Columbia Canal, the primary water source for downtown Columbia that was breached in the historic October 2015 floods.
But the city also is hoping to establish a secondary water source along the Broad, which could be used should another issue happen with the canal in the future. Columbia Water officials have said that secondary source could cost $30 million. Assistant City Manager Clint Shealy told The State that the city is applying for a FEMA grant for that project.
And District 4 Councilman Daniel Rickenmann said the city needs to focus on basic services in 2021, noting that having a clean and safe city is “the cornerstone to all investment.”
Rickenmann also said he wants city council and other local entities to dig into the recent expansive property tax analysis commissioned by the city, in hopes of getting “a workable solution to create the right soil conditions for growth and investment in Columbia.”
The 81-page property tax study Rickenmann referenced cost the city $25,000 and was authored by Rebecca Gunnlaugsson, principal at Acuitas Economics and former chief economist with the state Department of Commerce. It found combined property taxes in the Columbia area are the highest among large metro areas in South Carolina, and have stymied growth in the Capital City in the last decade.
Gunnlaugsson’s study suggested that, in order for Columbia to become more competitive with places like Greenville and Charleston, the city, Richland County and Richland County’s school districts need to work collaboratively to reduce commercial property tax rates, lobby the state government to overhaul part of its tax code, combine city and county services that are overlapping, and develop a “cooperative financial approach” between the county’s school systems, among other steps.
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 9:19 AM.
