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Housing & Economic Development <br />Historically, the state has funded programs to promote reinvestment in communities, including <br />the "This Old House" program, that allowed owners of older homestead property to defer an <br />increase in their tax capacity resulting from repairs or improvements to the home and "This Old <br />Shop" for owners of older commercial/industrial property that make improvements that increase <br />the property's market value. <br />3-0 Business Incentives Policy <br />Without a thorough study, the Legislature should not make any substantive changes to the <br />Business Subsidy Act, as defined in M.S. 116J.993, but should look to technical changes that <br />would streamline both state and local processes and procedures. The Legislature should <br />distinguish between development incentives and redevelopment activities. In addition, in order to <br />ensure cohesive and comprehensive regulations, the legislature should limit regulation of <br />business incentives to the Business Subsidy Act. <br />Metro Cities supports additional legislation that includes tools to help enhance and <br />facilitate economic development and job creation. <br />3-P Broadband Technology <br />Where many traditional economic development tools have focused on managing the costs and <br />availability of traditional infrastructure - roads, rail and utilities - the 21stcentury economy is <br />dependent on reliable, cost effective, high bandwidth communications capabilities. This includes <br />voice, video, data and other services delivered over cable, telephone, fiber-optic, wireless and <br />other platforms. <br />The state has increased its role in expanding broadband infrastructure across the state by funding <br />broadband access for residents and businesses. The Governor's Broadband Task Force regularly <br />recommends updates to state broadband speed goals and funding levels to expand statewide <br />broadband access. The Office of Broadband Development in the Department of Employment and <br />Economic Development supports the role of broadband in economic development. The Office <br />coordinates broadband mapping and administers state broadband grant funds. <br />Cities play a vital role in achieving significantly higher broadband speeds. Local units of <br />government are contributing to increasing broadband capacity and ensuring internet connectivity, <br />reliability, and availability. However, attempts have been made in Minnesota and other states to <br />restrict or stop cities from facilitating the deployment of broadband services or forming <br />partnerships with private sector companies to provide broadband services to unserved or <br />underserved residents or businesses. Restricting municipal authority is contrary to existing state <br />law on electric utility service, telecommunications, and economic development. Metro Cities <br />opposes the adoption of state policies that further restrict a city's ability to finance, <br />construct or operate broadband telecommunications networks. <br />Metro Cities supports: <br />2018 Legislative Policies <br />33 <br />