Orange County’s nascent business incentives program is an important step toward ensuring that the area remains competitive in this difficult economic climate. Without such incentives, it could lose out on business ventures that would both stimulate the local economy and broaden the county’s tax base.
Such incentives are crucial to allowing Orange County to compete with nearby areas. Chapel Hill has lost business to places like Raleigh and Cary, which were more appealing to businesses than Chapel Hill.
Gary Shope, Orange County economic development director, explained, “We want to get jobs here, to grow industries here. We want to build an innovation community so small companies coming out of the University don’t have to go to Durham.”
This comes at a time when a difficult economy has only made areas in need of improvement more obvious.
Perhaps Orange County could have afforded to take a more laissez-faire approach to attracting businesses in the past, but competition is more cutthroat now.
As County Manager Frank Clifton put it, “The downturn in the economy has opened our eyes and made us see that we need to be more proactive.”
Furthermore, such an incentive would likely widen the array of retail options in Chapel Hill, an area in which it is easily outstripped by surrounding counties.
In turn, this potential increase in retail would be a boon to the county’s revenue, which currently comes largely from property taxes.
Such an increase in income is an especially important consideration in light of North Carolina’s statewide budget crisis. In the face of such drastic cuts, any and all means of increasing state revenue without increasing tax rates should be pursued.
Finally, an incentive program will be particularly useful if Chancellor Holden Thorp’s Innovate@Carolina initiative proves fruitful.
