Development will receive $727K incentive

MILO--The Finger Lakes Economic Development Center (FLEDC) held a public hearing where they detailed $727,000 in economic incentives for the residential development proposed for the former Penn Yan Marine site. The meeting was held Tuesday, Oct. 21 at the Milo town hall, where FLEDC Chief Executive Officer Steve Griffin said the incentives will be going toward a total project cost of $14.1 million. He said a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) will be put on the property itself while the construction and remediation is going on at the site.

"As a unit is sold, it will immediately drop off the PILOT and go straight onto the tax roll," Griffin said. "There may be a little bit of difference with that because I know there is a condo rule. You can't transfer over the title until a certain number of them are actually sold.
Developer Chris Iversen added the number of condos that need to be sold is 15 percent of the total properties under contract. He added this is a state requirement, adding they have to be condo units so the state can receive brown field cleanup credits.
Griffin said $500,000 of the incentive will be saved in sales tax, with $50,000 in mortgage tax savings and the rest in real estate tax savings. He said the amount of incentive also depends on how long it takes for the units to be constructed and put on the tax roll, adding if they sell quickly, it will amount to less incentives received. Griffin estimates all units will be sold within a five year period, but added he thinks they will sell even quicker than that.
Griffin said the number of condominiums to be built could fluctuate between 36 units and 41 units. He said while the number of condominums is undetermined, it should not have an impact on the incentives.
"The incentives that we have shown publicly are based primarily off projections on how quickly units will sell," Griffin said. "That is the big variable in this thing. The fact there may be five more units than what was actually published should not substantially change the project or the total amount of incentives."