Doc Drop: Council Agenda - Dec. 13, 2011

The Fredericksburg City Council agenda for December 13 has been released. The agenda includes three high profile measures touching on technology, tourism, and neighborhood nuisance enforcement. if you're a local policy wonk, you won't want to miss this one.

• The City Council will hold a public hearing to expand the technology zone to include the entire city and take away council approval of some tech zone business incentive programs. The revised tech zone and incentive program is designed to cash in on otherwise "missed opportunities" to entice tech companies to relocate in the city. By stripping City Council of it's direct approval of the tech zone incentive program (note: only for incentives up to $100,000 in total value), city officials hope to make it easier for interested businesses to relocate. The measure also reduces the eligibility criteria for tech zone incentives. 
• Right after that, a nearly identical measure geared towards the tourism industry is slated for public hearing. Like the tech zone amendments, the new rules expand the boundaries of the Tourism Zone, but only to include the Route 3/Gateway Boulevard corridors, strip the City Council of direct approval of Tourism Zone incentive programs up to $100,000 in value, and reduce the eligibility criteria for Tourism Zone incentives. 
• Fredericksburg's nuisance laws are also up for a major overhaul. The new law, n, would significantly restructure how the city enforces nuisances. The measure calls for weeds, trash and broken down car nuisances to be organized into their own city code chapter. It also clarifies and expands the definition of a prohibited nuisance and increases the penalties for nuisance violations.

The entire agenda is available in the PDF attached to this article. The meeting begins at 7:30p.m. at There is no work session beforehand.