Downtown Long Beach. Photo by Samuel Lippke.
8:20am | The Downtown Long Beach Associates [DLBA] is hosting a series of meetings this week to present a draft of the new Management Plan for the Downtown Property-Based Improvement District [PBID]. On Tuesday, November 15th at 11:30 AM, the DLBA’s PBID Steering Committee will meet at Shoreline Square, located at 301 East Ocean Blvd in Suite 1150. At 7 PM the DLBA is hosting a community meeting at 133 Promenade in the building’s community room. Plan to arrive early, because it will be a packed house. On Wednesday the 16th at 8 AM, they’re having a DLBA Board Meeting in the Sicilian Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel, located at 111 East Ocean Blvd.
If you’ve made it this far, let me just say that the PBID renewal is a complex issue, but it is one that not only impacts those who live and work in Downtown, but really will have a far-reaching impact throughout the City. If you live or work in Long Beach, it will affect you.
PBIDs provide special benefits to property owners inside the district. These benefits are paid by property owners through a special assessment which is added to property tax bills sent by the County. These special benefits are defined within the Management Plan, but cannot include services that would normally be provided by the City.
In Long Beach, the DLBA manages funds collected from Downtown business owners via their annual business license fees through the Downtown Parking Improvement Area, and funds collected through the County for the PBID. More on this in a moment.
The current PBID is about to expire. After the first 5 years, it was renewed, in 2003, for another 10 years. Since that first renewal, however, the DLBA claims that a series of State court cases have changed the interpretation of PBID related laws. For its 15 year life, the Downtown Long Beach PBID has included only commercial property owners. If the PBID is renewed next year, all property owners will be required to pay the additional assessment. This means that an additional 2500 (more or less) residential property owners will be paying into the PBID. Previously excluded properties owned by non-profits will also be forced to participate. The justification for the inclusion of residential property owners is that they benefit from the services provided by the DLBA, but aren’t currently paying for them.
The DLBA provides a number of services to current PBID participants. These include the Safe and Clean programs, which provide power washing of sidewalks, people who walk around and collect trash, foot patrols, and Segway-riding guides. There are three service areas in the existing district, and property owners pay different amounts, and receive different levels of special benefits, depending upon which service area they’re in. You can read the DLBA’s PBID ‘FAQ,’ which includes the current list of services, and district map.
The response from many owner-occupied residential property owners has been angry, and negative. As has been reported in the Grunion Gazette and Press-Telegram, a growing number of property owners have joined Downtown Homeowners Unite to oppose the renewal. They have voiced many concerns.
First, there’s the voting process. The law requires that the vote by property owners to approve the PBID be weighted. This means, essentially, that every dollar of PBID assessment translates into one vote. The City of Long Beach is the largest property owner in the Downtown area, so they will have the largest number of votes. There are a number of other large property owners who, combined with the City’s voting block, will easily meet the required 50.1% of votes to approve the PBID.
It should also be noted that many of the companies that own large properties in Downtown are not based there. Many are not even based in Long Beach. Further, many of the owners of these companies don’t live here, either.
It is unclear if people living in rental units, already part of the existing PBID, will have any direct participation in the PBID renewal process, even though there is a direct pass-through of the fee costs to them. The entirety of all the residenial property owners totals about 12% of the votes. Their feelings of helplessnes and frustration are understandable.
The boundaries of the assessment district are defined by DLBA board and community members who serve on the DLBA’s PBID Steering Committee. According to the DLBA’s paid consultant, Brad Segal, President of Progressive Urban Management Associates [PUMA], the committee is required to consider petitions from Home Owners’ Associations and other contiguous voting blocks on the fringes of the district who want to be excluded. A redrawing of the district to exclude those who do not want to participate is possible, but not required. Segal said, “it is ultimately a policy call. There is nothing in any of the laws that requires that they be jettisoned.”
The third, and perhaps most significant, issue is that the interests of business owners may not always be in alignment with the interests of residental property owners, yet the DLBA will be required to represent both. Historically, the DLBA’s board has been focused on serving the needs of the Downtown business community. With the influx of 2500 new residential stakeholders, the DLBA’s priorities will need to shift to better represent their needs. One such shift, for example, would be to increase the participation of residential property owners on the board. Also, it is likely that the DLBA’s bylaws will need to be extensively modified to accommodate the new operational parameters of the new PBID.
The DLBA has also faced public criticism in recent years. In 2009, a failed attempt to petition the removal of the DLBA president centered on the issue of fair representation for Pine Avenue retail and dining establishments. More recently, property and business owners in the area known as North Pine have been looking for ways to secede from the DLBA. It is not surprising, then, that potential new stakeholders have voiced concerns about the DLBA’s ability to represent their interests.
Residential property owners have expressed concerns about the DLBA’s Board elections. Members do not get to vote for individual board candidates. According to their by-laws, the DLBA’s Executive Committee creates a slate of potential candidates and sends the list to the members. Members can vote yes, or no, for the entire slate, but not for individual candidates. These votes are also weighted.
If the PBID Steering Committee refuses to modify the district map to exclude property owners that don’t want to participate in the PBID, and if the large property owners vote to support the PBID renewal, which is likely, there remains one final recourse for people opposed to the renewal: The City Council. 1st District Council member Robert Garcia, and 2nd District representative Suja Lowenthal, both have constituants in the PBID district. Although I’ve asked for statements from them, neither offered any position on the renewal process. All Council members must vote to approve the PBID. A simple majority is required, so 5 council members must support it.
Still, elected municipal representatives are the ones most connected and beholden to the people of the City. They are obligated to listen to the concerns of their constituents, and represent their views. It seems likely that if enough people complain to their Councilmembers about this issue, they might be swayed to oppose it.
According to DLBA President Kraig Kojian, the DLBA Board voted in January to commit $85,000 of PBID funds to employ PUMA to oversee the renewal process. It is unclear how PUMAs efforts qualify as a special benefit to participating PBID property owners, however. About this, David Wolfe, Legislative Director for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association [HJTA], said “While there is nothing illegal occurring in using PBID money for surveys, HJTA has serious problems with this. Money from the PBID should be going to provide services to improve the community, not trying to extend the assessment. If that research is valuable, it should be supported out of local government General Funds or private resources.”
PUMA uses part of those funds to assess the costs for delivering services to specific properties. Wolfe said, “in order to better understand the desires of Long Beach residents, the survey should be conducted as independently as possible.”
The DLBA’s own staff costs are about $700,000 annually, exluding the staffing costs of the Clean and Safe programs, and has an annual operating budget of about $3.5 million dollars.
This article is just a thumb-nail sketch of the challenges that have arisen in the PBID renewal process. The next installment, due out next Tuesday, will focus on interviews with affected property owners. I also plan to interview staff and board members of the DLBA about the PBID, its potential benefits, and the concerns of current and future stakeholders. That story should run on the 29th. Stay tuned.
Click here to contact your elected Council representative.
Click here to view our policies covering the Long Beach city council.