AN ACT to clarify qualifications for the exception for multijurisdictional industrial parks tier designation and to provide for a temporary increase in the cap on amounts committed under the Job Development Investment Grant Program.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  G.S. 143B‑437.08(h) reads as rewritten:
"(h)	Exception for Certain Multijurisdictional Industrial Parks. – An eligible industrial park created by interlocal agreement under G.S. 158‑7.4, and parcels of land located within the industrial park that are subsequently transferred and used for industrial or commercial purposes authorized for cities and counties under G.S. 158‑7.1,  have the lowest development tier designation of the designations of the counties in which they are located if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
(1)	The industrial park is located, at one or more sites, in three or more contiguous counties.
(2)	At least one of the counties in which the industrial park is located is a development tier one area.
(3)	The industrial park is owned by three or more units of local government or a nonprofit corporation owned or controlled by three or more units of local government.
(4)	In each county in which the industrial park is located, the park has at least 250 developable acres. A transfer of acreage that reduces the number of developable acres below 250 developable acres in a county does not affect an industrial park's eligibility under this subsection if the transfer is to an owner who uses or develops the acreage for industrial or commercial purposes authorized for cities and counties under G.S. 158‑7.1. For the purposes of this subdivision, "developable acres" includes acreage that is owned directly by the industrial park or its owners or that is the subject of a development agreement between the industrial park or its owners and a third‑party owner.
(5)	The total population of all of the counties in which the industrial park is located is less than 200,000.
(6)	In each county in which the industrial park is located, at least sixteen and eight‑tenths percent (16.8%) of the population was Medicaid eligible for the 2003‑2004 fiscal year based on 2003 population estimates."
SECTION 2.  Notwithstanding G.S. 143B‑437.52(c), the maximum amount of total annual liability for grants for agreements entered into in calendar year 2008 under the Job Development Investment Grant Program, including amounts transferred to the Utility Account pursuant to G.S. 143B‑437.61, may not exceed twenty‑five million dollars ($25,000,000).

SECTION 3.  This act is effective when it becomes law.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 18th day of July, 2008.

	s/	 Marc Basnight
	 President Pro Tempore of the Senate

	s/	 Joe Hackney
	 Speaker of the House of Representatives

	s/	 Michael F. Easley
	 Governor

Approved 8:19 p.m. this 2nd day of August, 2008