§ 3-10 — Definitions

As used in this Act: "Affected Municipality" means a municipality whose boundaries are partially or completely within the Brownfields Redevelopment Zone and where an Eligible Project will take place. "Developer Agreement" means the agreement between an eligible developer or eligible employer and the Department under this Act. "Brownfield" means real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant; for the purposes of this Act, a property will be considered a brownfield if a prospective purchaser seeking financing from a private financial institution is required by that institution to conduct a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA), as defined by ASTM Standard E-1527-05 ("Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process"). "Department" means the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. "Director" means the Director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. "Eligible Developer" means an individual, partnership, corporation, or other entity, currently and actively engaged in the development of logistics, warehousing, distribution, or light manufacturing facilities in North America, including the Managing Partner of the South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone, that owns, options, or otherwise directly controls a parcel of land that is included in a South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone Project. "Eligible employer" means an individual, partnership, corporation, or other entity that employs or will employ full-time employees at finished facilities on property that is within the South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone. "Employment goal" means the goal of achieving a minimum percentage of labor hours to be performed by employees who are a member of a minority group and who reside in one of the municipalities containing property that is part of the South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone. "Full-time employee" means an individual who is employed for consideration for at least 35 hours each week or who renders any other standard of service generally accepted by industry custom or practice as full-time employment. An individual for whom a W-2 is issued by a Professional Employer Organization is a full-time employee if employed in the service of the eligible employer for consideration for at least 35 hours each week or who renders any other standard of service generally accepted by industry custom or practice as full-time employment. "Eligible Project" means those projects described in Section 3-35 of this Act. "Incremental income tax" means the total amount withheld from the compensation of new employees under Article 7 of the Illinois Income Tax Act arising from employment by an eligible employer. "Infrastructure" means roads and streets, bridges, sidewalks, street lights, water and sewer line extensions or improvements, storm water drainage and retention facilities, gas and electric utility line extensions or improvements, and rail improvements including signalization and siding construction or repair, on publicly owned land or other public improvements that are essential to the development of a Redevelopment Zone Project. "Intermodal" means a type of international freight system that permits transshipping among sea, highway, rail and air modes of transportation through use of ANSI/International Organization for Standardization containers, line haul assets, and handling equipment. "Intermodal terminal" means an integrated facility where trailers and containers are transferred between intermodal railcars and highway carriers, including domestic and international container shipments; or an integrated facility where dry or liquid bulk and packaged commodities are transferred between conventional railroad freight cars and highway carriers. "Managing Partner" means a representative of Cook County appointed by the President of the Board of Commissioners of Cook County or a duly created instrumentality of the County which enters into an agreement with the Department as described in subsection (c) of Section 3-30 of this Act regarding the overall management and use of Increment Funds and which is authorized by the County to undertake, or to enter into Development agreements with third parties to undertake, activities necessary for the redevelopment of parcels designated under this Act as part of a South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone. For the purposes of this definition, a "duly created instrumentality of the county" is a company that: (1) is licensed to conduct business in the State of Illinois; (2) has (i) executed industrial developments of the type described as "eligible projects" in Section 3-35 and duly met all of its financial obligations entailed in those projects and (ii) managed each of the types of tasks described in Section 3-45 of this Act as "eligible activities", performing those activities with results that met or exceeded the objectives of the project, or otherwise possesses the business experience described in this item (2); (3) is selected through a competitive Request for Proposals process conducted according to rules and standards generally applicable to the selection of professional service contractors by the government of Cook County. "Minority" means a person who is a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States and who is: (i) African American, meaning a person whose origins are in any of the Black racial groups of Africa, and who has historically and consistently identified himself or herself as being such a person; (ii) Hispanic American or Latino American, meaning a person whose origins are in Mexico, Central or South America, or any of the Spanish speaking islands of the Caribbean (for example Cuba and Puerto Rico), regardless of race, and who has historically and consistently identified himself or herself as being such a person; (iii) Asian or Pacific Islander American, meaning a person whose origins are in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the islands of the Pacific or the Northern Marianas, or the Indian Subcontinent, and who has historically and consistently identified himself or herself as being such a person; or (iv) Native American, meaning a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintain tribal affiliation or demonstrate at least one-quarter descent from such groups, and who has historically and consistently identified himself or herself as being such a person. "New employee" means a full-time employee first employed by an eligible employer for a project that is the subject of an agreement between the Managing Partner and an eligible developer or eligible employer and who is hired after the eligible developer enters into the agreement, but does not include: (1) an employee of the eligible employer who performs a job that (i) existed for at least 6 months before the employee was hired and (ii) was previously performed by another employee; (2) an employee of the eligible employer who was previously employed in Illinois by a related member of the eligible employer and whose employment was shifted to the eligible employer after the eligible employer entered into the agreement; or (3) a child, grandchild, parent, or spouse, other than a spouse who is legally separated from the individual, of any individual who has a direct or an indirect ownership interest of at least 5% in the profits, capital, or value of the eligible employer. Notwithstanding item (2) of this definition, an employee may be considered a new employee under the agreement if the employee performs a job that was previously performed by an employee who was: (i) treated under the agreement as a new employee and (ii) promoted by the eligible employer to another job. "Professional Employer Organization" means an employee leasing company, as defined in Section 206.1(A)(2) of the Unemployment Insurance Act. "Related member" means a person or entity that, with respect to the eligible employer during any portion of the taxable year, is any one of the following: (1) an individual stockholder, if the stockholder and the members of the stockholder's family (as defined in Section 318 of the Internal Revenue Code) own directly, indirectly, beneficially, or constructively, in the aggregate, at least 50% of the value of the eligible employer's outstanding stock; (2) a partnership, estate, or trust and any partner or beneficiary, if the partnership, estate, or trust, and its partners or beneficiaries own directly, indirectly, beneficially, or constructively, in the aggregate, at least 50% of the profits, capital, stock, or value of the eligible employer; (3) a corporation, and any party related to the corporation in a manner that would require an attribution of stock from the corporation to the party or from the party to the corporation under the attribution rules of Section 318 of the Internal Revenue Code, if the taxpayer owns directly, indirectly, beneficially, or constructively at least 50% of the value of the corporation's outstanding stock; (4) a corporation and any party related to that corporation in a manner that would require an attribution of stock from the corporation to the party or from the party to the corporation under the attribution rules of Section 318 of the Internal Revenue Code, if the corporation and all such related parties own in the aggregate at least 50% of the profits, capital, stock, or value of the eligible employer; or (5) a person to or from whom there is attribution of stock ownership in accordance with Section 1563(e) of the Internal Revenue Code, except, for purposes of determining whether a person is a related member under this definition, 20% shall be substituted for 5% wherever 5% appears in Section 1563(e) of the Internal Revenue Code. "South Suburban Brownfields Advisory Council" or "Advisory Council" means a body comprised of representatives of Affected Municipalities, along with experts appointed by the President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and the Governor of Illinois, created to guide development within the South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone. "South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone Project" or "Project" means an Eligible Project, as described in Section 3-35, to coordinate the redevelopment and re-use of industrial sites within the South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone in southern Cook County. "South Suburban Brownfields Redevelopment Zone", "Brownfields Redevelopment Zone" or "Zone" means the area fully encompassing all properties, acreage, and structures, including sites that conform to the Environmental Protection Agency definition of Brownfield Industrial Sites, that are zoned for industrial uses by the applicable local zoning agency and which are located within the following South Suburban Cook County municipalities that surround the Canadian National and Union Pacific intermodal freight terminals in Harvey and Dolton, Illinois respectively: Dixmoor, Dolton, East Hazelcrest, Harvey, Hazelcrest, Homewood, Markham, Phoenix, Posen, Riverdale, South Holland and Thornton. The South Suburban Brownfields Advisory Council shall advise the Managing Partner in regard to the selection of Projects. The composition of the Advisory Council is determined as set forth in subsection (a) of Section 3-30 of this Act.

Legislative History

(Source: P.A. 98-109, eff. 7-25-13.)