If a parking structure isn’t worth a nickel to the downtown commercial landlords, why should residents pay millions?
For those who have been trying for 25 years to get a parking structure in the downtown, here’s how to do it in two simple steps:
1) First step: Come up with a great design that is functional and that meets the practical and aesthetic standards of an artistic community that values its small-town look and feel. Something that works well and is really good looking or really invisible, and that is clean, bright, and airy and something that people will support and use. Don’t save pennies by having low head-banging clearances. No one wants a cold, dark, damp, smelly, creepy parking structure.
2) Second step: To pay for the design and construction of the facility, the 160 or so downtown commercial building owners should form an assessment district like citizens do to underground utilities in our neighborhoods, and vote a small tax on their properties that could average as little as five cents per square foot of downtown commercial space per month – roughly 1% to 2% of the rents collected by the downtown commercial landlords – with the funds used to pay the debt service on a bond that funds the structure. Note it only takes a petition signed by the owners of 60% of the properties to start the process, and if a simple majority of those to be assessed then agree, a district can be formed.
If the residents allow the commercial landlords to site the structure on public land that has been paid for by the citizens over many years, and allow the landlords to borrow using the City’s tax exemptions, isn’t it only fair that the private commercial building owners who will derive the most benefit from the structure contribute the cost of constructing the facility?
If a parking structure isn’t worth a nickel to the downtown commercial landlords, why should residents pay millions?
John Thomas, Laguna Beach
