ANAHEIM : ‘Enterprise Zone’ on Council Agenda

The City Council will decide tonight whether the city should seek state approval for an “enterprise zone” so businesses located within its boundaries can receive a variety of tax breaks.

If the council gives the proposal its blessing, Anaheim will join Santa Ana as one of 60 cities vying for one of the five enterprise zones the state will award next year. Twenty cities already have enterprise zones.

The Anaheim zone would cover a huge portion of the city, including all major commercial and industrial areas in its central and northeastern regions.

“There are no drawbacks to having an enterprise zone,” said Kevin Carrigan, the city’s community development project manager. “This is one way to reduce the cost of doing business in the area. One of the things that we are hearing from businesses that are expanding or relocating elsewhere is that the cost of doing business in this state is too high.”

In selecting a city for a zone, the state Department of Commerce looks for an area that is economically depressed, located in a community that will market the program and has job training and available real estate for commercial and industrial development.

If such a zone is granted for Anaheim, a number of tax breaks would apply, including a tax credit of up to $19,000 for every unemployed person a business hires; sales tax credits of up to $1.2 million for businesses that purchase new machinery and equipment; a waiver on the state taxes banks have to pay on interest they earn on loans made to businesses in the enterprise zone; and a 5% credit for some employees of zone businesses on their state income taxes.

The council meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.