The Alabama Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would give municipalities the ability to create designated research corridors with appointed boards that could collect fees and spend funds to develop the areas.
“This is, I think, a very important, significant bill for our state,” Senate Bill 336 sponsor Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, said on the Senate floor. “It’s something new. It creates a research and development corridor in our state for the municipalities to use for economic development and growth.”
The corridors could be used to attract certain sectors, including biotech and advanced manufacturing.
They would be controlled by boards that could acquire property within the designated areas and charge and collect fees. They could also take on debts and be exempt from some state taxes.
Waggoner substituted the 39-page bill on the Senate floor Thursday.
“It’s not a complicated bill, but I think it’s very significant,” he said.
What passed the Senate and now goes to the House is at least the fourth iteration of the legislation this session and for some is still too broad in the powers it grants.
Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, spoke against it on the Senate floor Thursday.
“In my opinion, we are starting to launch a lot of quasi-government authorities that have a lot of authority,” Orr said. “We are outsourcing government to the local level to individuals who are not placed there through the electoral process, through elections, and giving them a lot of power.”
Orr voted against the bill, as did Sens. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, Tom Butler, R-Huntsville, and Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia.
Its legislations most immediate use would be in south Birmingham, where a biotech collaboration between the University of Alabama Birmingham and the nonprofit Southern Research is planned.
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, said the project is a huge economic development opportunity for the area.