Downtown
Working Group Approves Management Plan After Contentious Debate
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By Jorge Casuso
January 28 -- A Bayside working group narrowly approved
the key points of a new management plan for Downtown Santa Monica,
but not before it nearly unraveled two days after a blueprint was
presented to the City Council.
The general thrust of the plan – bankrolled with $3.7 million in new
property assessments – had been hammered out over the past five months,
and Downtown officials agreed on the key budget items.
The only significant change made by the working group was to recommend in a
close vote that the new board be composed of 13 members, instead of the 15 initially
proposed.
The group also recommended that the seven members the City Council and property
owners each appoint (one seat would be filled by the City Manager) not be restricted
to a prescribed number of property owners, business owners and residents.
“The City Council should not have any prescription,” said former
mayor Judy Abdo, a member of the working group. “They should be able to
appoint whoever they want. I prefer fewer rules on that. I think they should
be able to make good judgements each time.”
But other details of the plan -- which calls for a new assessment district
to boost maintenance, launch a new “ambassador program” and pay
for more marketing and special projects -- seemed briefly in jeopardy when key
stakeholders in the working group began questioning what they would get for
their assessment dollars.
“If we can’t get over these big issues in the next six to eight
weeks, we can’t move forward,” warned Brad Segal the lead consultant
on the project. “After 18 months of process, if we can’t come to
agreement on issues we’ve discussed for five to six months, we’re
in trouble.”
Shortly after the start of a three-hour meeting that ran an hour longer than
scheduled, Segal seemed to grow frustrated with concerns that the plan would
shortchange some property owners.
“What I’m hearing now is we don’t trust ourselves to do that
in an equitable manner,” said Segal, who heads Progressive Urban Management
Associates, Inc. “There has to be a leap. Do we trust? If we don’t
have the fundamental trust, we’re kidding ourselves on this.”
But Janet Morris, who represents a group of Downtown property owners, questioned
the need to begin circulating in March petitions that must be signed by property
owners, so the council can approve the plan in time for kick-off at the start
of next year.
“That we have to wait another year is less important than getting it
right,” Morris said.
Morris, and realtor Barbara Tenzer, who brokers many leases Downtown, worried
that the new assessment district was too large, that property owners on peripheral
streets would not reap adequate benefits and that the City wasn’t picking
up its fair share of the costs.
“We could be paying for something we don’t get,” said Morris.
The assessment district, she added, “should be limited to the commercial
area Downtown, which ends at 5th Street.”
But the majority on the working group agreed that the proposed boundaries --
the east side of Ocean Avenue, the east side of 7th Street, the north side of
Wilshire Boulevard and the 10 Freeway -- should not be scaled back.
The streets, proponents of the wider boundaries argued, would reap benefits
proportional to the assessments paid by their property owners.
Under the proposed plan, a property on the thriving Third Street Promenade
would pay the most at 88¢ a square foot, properties on neighboring 2nd
and 4th streets and Ocean Avenue would pay 44¢, while those on 5th to 7th
streets would pay 22¢.
The plan, Segal said, “mirrors existing values and rents, as well as
the existing assessment structure.”
While the $1.23 million plan to hire ambassadors to provide a “concierge”
service for visitors and “assist police to discourage nuisance crimes”
would mainly benefit the Promenade, its impact would also be felt on other streets,
Bayside officials said.
So would the $1.3 million in enhanced maintenance services that City officials
have made it clear they need to control.
“We can’t be taking care of ourselves and saying, ‘It stops
here,’” said Bayside Board member Bill Tucker, a Promenade property
owner who sits on the working group. “It’s Downtown. We have to
be safe.”
Property owners on peripheral streets who have met with Bayside representatives
“see value in the cleaning,” Segal said, adding that it is important
that the current maintenance services paid by the City stay in place.
“I think we’ve had adequate representation to know there will be
support for the petition,” Segal said.
“It wouldn’t be looking to the future to limit this to 5th Street,”
said Alan Freeman, who represents JSM management, which owns and operates more
than 500 residential units on those streets and is building more. “We
definitely need ambassadors on 5th, 6th and 7th.”
But Morris disagreed.
“The whole thing from the beginning is we need ambassadors on the Promenade,”
Morris said. “The ambassador program is too big and too expensive.”
Some working group members also questioned why the City would pay little or
nothing in assessments for key properties -- the Main Library, Bus Yards and
public parking structures. Under the proposal, the City would pay assessments
only for the ground floor of the structures.
While some property owners felt the City should pay for the entire structure,
Segal and the majority of the working group disagreed.
“If you assess the structures, you have to provide the services,”
Segal said. “The cleaning of the parking structures is currently a City
responsibility. The moment you assess the parking structures, you’d have
to provide additional benefit.”
Segal noted that while it’s important to set goals and budget line items,
the numbers are not etched in stone and will change over time, as programs are
tested and tweaked.
“You can’t answer the (deployment) questions until you’re
up and running,” Segal said.
In a final action, the working group voted to replace an assessment district
that currently only taxes retailers, with a larger one that would include restaurants,
hotels, offices and, perhaps, apartment buildings.
Bayside representatives are confident there is support for the plan after meeting
with major stakeholders who will have a proportional vote on the assessments.
Downtown’s biggest landlord, Douglas Emmett, which would pay some $300,000
in taxes, has expressed interest in the plan, though it has not committed, while
Macerich Company, which owns Santa Monica Place, “very clearly (is) on
board,” Segal said.
Bayside also met with representatives of ten hotels in the district, and they
“have reacted mostly favorably to this,” he said.
“They understand the investment, they understand the private investment,”
said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District. “I felt
that we made some pretty good progress.”
But for the plan to garner the support of the majority of the owners of the
350 Downtown parcels, it is critical that the City maintain its services, Segal
said.
“That the City continue to provide existing services is crucial,”
he said. “Anything that lowers the existing level is a non-starter.”
The working group will meet again next month.
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