At the next-to-last meeting of their four-year term of office, Memphis City Council members are poised to give final approval Tuesday, Dec. 3, to a solid waste fee hike and approve the city’s plan to redevelop the Fairgrounds.

The two items are part of a set of major decisions to be made as a new council takes office in January.

Before the solid waste vote at the 3:30 p.m. council session, council members will discuss the proposal at a 1:15 p.m. executive session.

The monthly solid waste fee, paid for weekly residential garbage pickup and twice a month curbside pickup of items not in recycling carts, would go from $22.80 to $29.96 effective Jan. 1 under the latest draft of the proposal from the city administration.

The mixed-use plan for the Fairgrounds has as its centerpiece a 227,000-square-foot youth sports complex about where Libertyland amusement park used to be in the southwest corner of the 155 acres. There would also be commercial development including a hotel and retail on the Central Avenue frontage near Hollywood as well as a relocation of the athletic field used for Shelby County Schools football and track.

Approval of the planned development would clear the way for the start of construction on the youth sports complex, which is phase 2 of the city project that began with development of Tiger Lane during the Wharton administration.

Also on Tuesday’s agenda are a second reading on a tourism surcharge for the convention center hotel project and a referendum ordinance to change residency requirements for police and firefighters. If both measures are approved, they would advance to a third and final vote at the Dec. 17 council session – the last of the current council’s term of office.

The proposal that would go to voters on the November 2020 ballot, if approved by the council, was amended by co-sponsor Ford Canale two weeks ago to allow the city to hire firefighters and police officers who live within 50 miles of the city or in neighboring counties. It would also give preference to Memphis residents by a points system used in hiring.

The original proposal would have allowed police and fire officials to hire those who live within a two-hour drive of the city. The current residency requirement for all city employees is that they must live within Shelby County.

Proposed Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division rate hikes over a three-year period to take effect in July are also on the council’s agenda Tuesday. The council delayed the set of votes on the matter and the utility’s budget proposal two weeks ago as it appointed an impasse panel.

The panel is to decide a labor contract impasse between the administration and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union. Because the impasse could affect the budget proposal, another delay in the rate hike proposal is likely Tuesday.

Council trying to check off various items as terms approach end

Third attempt at multi-year MLGW rate hikes prompts questions

Questions remain about commercial areas of Fairgrounds after approval

But council members will discuss in a 10:45 a.m. committee session a proposal to base how much MLGW pays toward retiree health benefits based on years of service. The proposal would affect all utility employees hired on or after the new year. It is part of savings MLGW officials have proposed to go with the rate hikes proposed across the gas, electric and water divisions. The average residential bill would increase by $14 a month under the three-year rate hike proposal.

The council also votes Tuesday on resolutions affecting the city’s big three development projects – Union Row, the Loews convention center hotel and redevelopment of the Pinch district by the group 18 Main.

The council specifically votes on a resolution transferring the Loews hotel site in the Civic Center Plaza to the Center City Revenue Finance Corp and approving a parking agreement between Loews and the city.

The council also votes on a resolution for an amended Tax Increment Financing – or TIF – district for the Union Row project. The changes reflect the expansion of the project from a $511 million investment to a $751 million investment by the group led by developer Kevin Adams.

The acreage covered by the development has almost doubled now to take in 21.5 acres. The expanded area includes the 189-year-old Hunt Phelan House, giving the project a footprint that includes land on both sides of Danny Thomas Boulevard.

And the council votes Tuesday on a supplement resolution to the Downtown Tourism Development Zone to include plans by 18 Main LLC for the development of the nine-block area between the Pyramid and the campus of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Other planning and development items include a proposed convenience store with gas pumps at the northwest corner of Thomas Street and Frayser Boulevard by Thomas North Inc. and a car wash at East Shelby Drive west of Gleneagles Drive. The Land Use Control Board is recommending rejection of the Frayser project. The Office of Planning and Development is recommending rejection of the car wash.

The council will also award its annual Humanitarian Award to Dr. Kenneth Robinson, president and CEO of United Way of the Mid-South, former pastor of St. Andrew AME Church and former state health commissioner.

The council normally awards the honor in April during observances of the anniversary of the 1968 sanitation workers strike and assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Follow Tuesday’s council session @bdriesdm for live coverage and updates from committee sessions earlier in the day.