It’s about helping small businesses expand, find fresh digs inside Auburn, and proliferate.

City Councilmembers recently approved the Auburn Small Business Development Assistance program, calling it the next step in local efforts to support business development, recruitment and retention.

In effect until Dec. 31, 2013, the program works by cutting the cost of certain permits and approvals and applying different fee rates, computed at 50-percent of what they usually are.

New businesses, existing businesses that want to expand and move, and existing business that want to relocate to Auburn can take advantage of the free program, if eligible.

Businesses must have 20 or fewer full-time employees to be eligible. The City’s Planning and Development director, however, can grant a 10-percent variance to this maximum, based on the businesses’ contribution to the city’s economic base.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our local and national economies,” Mayor Pete Lewis said recently. “Many of these businesses are still dealing with the effects of the economic recession that includes reduced or restricted access to financing that may challenge their ability to start, expand or relocate.

“The Small Business Development Assistance Pilot Program offers an opportunity for the City to promote small business activity in Auburn by reducing costs of entry and allowing more money to be spent on business activities to help them succeed,” Lewis said.

In the past, the City has deferred the impact of fees and system development charges for residential and non-residential development.

It has also authorized a construction sales tax exemption for building, redevelopment or expansion of certain types of commercial buildings in the Downtown Urban Center (DUC), Heavy Commercial (C3), Mixed Use Commercial (C4) zoning districts, Environmental Park (EP) District, Light Industrial (M-1) and Heavy Industrial (M-2) zoning districts.

For more information, call Planning and Development Director Kevin Snyder at (253) 876-1982.