The day after I read about Caroline’s Board of Supervisors approving a Wireless Service Authority, I read this on Portia Smith’s Blog:
Caroline County Creates Technology Zones
Aug. 27, 2009 9:10 pm
For: Caroline County Creates Technology Zones
From: Caroline County Board of Supervisors
Percy Ashcraft, County Administrator
Date: August 26, 2009The Caroline County Board of Supervisors at their August 25th meeting passed an enacting Resolution providing the County with an active Technology Zone Ordinance able to apply substantial incentives for recruiting technology based industries.
Technology Zone incentives do not draw on existing County revenue but allow the Board of Supervisors, with advice from Staff, to rebate taxes for businesses that meet specific guidelines that define them as Technology Companies.
The County may create Technology Zones based on Virginia Statute that define the scope and limits of the program. Special zones for allowing communities in Virginia to provide incentives are strictly confined to firms with high technology investments and cannot be applied to other types of businesses.Caroline’s Technology Zones are an overlay of exiting land use designations and neither rezone a property to a new definition nor effect real estate taxes. The Technology designation merely defines an area where incentives may be applied for Technology firms. Caroline County appears to have the largest area of Technology Zones of any community in Virginia according to sources at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.
Potentially the incentives are able to apply for the legal maximum of ten years and can be applied to various taxes effecting businesses that influence their determination in choosing the community for their facility.
Recent creation of Technology Zones in neighboring Counties as well as across Virginia and in other States made Caroline’s traditionally low taxes less compelling as an attraction to new business investment than previously. Caroline’s Technology Zone Ordinance more than levels the playing field in costs to Technology Firms seeking new research or production sites.
The Department of Economic Development & Tourism will implement marketing based on the Technology Zone Ordinance. The Ordinance originated in the County Economic Development Committee headed by Supervisor, Bobby Popowicz.For Further Information, Contact:
Gary R. Wilson, Director
Caroline County Department of Economic Development & Tourism
804.633.4074 gwilson@co.caroline.va.us
This is encouraging, but I wonder how the employees of these potential Tech Firms will feel when they go home and have to use dial up to use the internet… Hopefully, this move will bring in High Tech Firms, who will work with the citizens to get broadband brought into Caroline. The Wireless Authority maybe a good band-aid, but it has it’s instability and slow speed issues. FIOS and fiber connections would be a much better option for most serious internet users. It still frustrates me that in 2009, Lake Caroline and Lake Land’or does not have high-speed internet options. With the incentive programs being offered for Technology Zones, perhaps we can also encourage our elected officials to find incentives to get Comcast and / or Verizon to turn on the bandwidth!
In March of this year, we wrote this update on internet access. Based on the comment stream from “Caroline, The land that the World Forgot”, it’s clear that this is a large concern for the community base. It was written in December of 2007 and still is the most read post on our blog.
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