Zone request a sticky issue.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

GloryBee Foods Inc. said it plans to ask city and county officials to push the boundary of the west Eugene enterprise zone a bit farther north to include GloryBee's 64-acre parcel east of Highway 99, near the airport.

The request is likely to reignite local controversy over the state-sanctioned zones, which grant three to five years of property tax breaks on investments in new plants or equipment to eligible firms that create jobs.

"I think it would be very difficult to have an enterprise zone discussion without having people bringing up some of their pros and cons about enterprise zones, and tax breaks and things of that sort," Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy said. "And people have very strong opinions in different directions in this community.

"I very much appreciate what GloryBee wants to do. The question is, could it be an acceptable location?"

Last month, GloryBee announced plans to build an $11 million-plus, 118,000-square-foot facility for itself on 15 of the acres off Awbrey Lane, and to create a nine-lot sustainable business park on the rest of the land.

GloryBee wants the property, which lies just outside the enterprise zone, to be put in the zone. The land is outside Eugene's city limits but inside Eugene's urban growth boundary. It's zoned for light-medium industrial development.

A change to the zone's boundary would require approval from the city and Lane County, the zone's joint sponsors.

"We're hopeful that the entire subdivision that is zoned for this use can fit into the enterprise zone program," said Alan Turanski, GloryBee's operations manager, and son of Dick and Pat Turanski, who founded the natural foods distribution company in Eugene in 1975.

"It would help us and our project get our feet off the ground and make it more sustainable," he said.

Turanski said the construction work will go out to bid soon, so GloryBee is hoping to have an answer from the city and county in the next 30 to 45 days.

Then "we'll know our budget and we'll know what we have to start cutting," he said. The enterprise zone "is part of the package that helps us achieve this thing," he said, referring to the business park, which will emphasize "green" construction and manufacturing.

A majority of Lane County commissioners, including commissioners Bobby Green, Bill Fleenor and Peter Sorenson, have expressed support for GloryBee's project.

"It sounds pretty promising," said Sorenson, who says the enterprise zone program should only reward firms that create and maintain family-wage jobs, which could at least support a family of three.

"We want to avoid a situation where we have an employer that comes in, gets a big tax write-off and as soon as the benefits run out, they run off to Brazil. We have to have a more definite commitment of investment in order to justify the tax waiver. I think the community was pretty burned by Sony," he said, referring to Sony Disc Manufacturing, which shut down its factory in Springfield after five years of enterprise zone tax breaks and eight years of operation.

Discussion is likely to be contentious in the City Council, where half of the members said they had a positive first impression of GloryBee's project.

"I'm extremely supportive of GloryBee Foods as a local sustainable sort of business," Councilor Mike Clark said.

"This is the sort of thing we want to see more of - a locally grown, sustainable-oriented business, with strong employment. So if they're in need of help, my first inclination - uneducated about the specifics of this - would be to want to help."

One councilor, Betty Taylor, said she'll have to hear more specifics but probably would oppose a request to expand the zone. "I don't feel the (enterprise zone) is the right tool," she said, adding that she would probably support other types of help for GloryBee. "If there's a local business that is a good citizen to the community and is important to the community, we should be able to help them, not just in the zone."

Eugene first created an enterprise zone in west Eugene in 1987. Ten years later, officials let the zone expire, largely in response to public anger at multi- million-dollar tax breaks for Hynix's computer-chip plant.

The council, under Piercy, reinstated the zone in the summer of 2005. Councilors directed that the zone be more focused on redevelopment and infill, instead of development of greenfields, or vacant property, which resulted in shrinking the boundaries, said Denny Braud, of the city's community development division. GloryBee's site, which is a greenfield, was part of the previous zone but was left out of the latest zone.