Downtown Morgan Hill’s commercial and retail property owners
will decide in the coming weeks if they want to continue taxing
themselves in order to pay for promotional efforts to attract
visitors, keep the streets clean and assist the city in the upkeep
of public infrastructure.
Downtown Morgan Hill’s commercial and retail property owners will decide in the coming weeks if they want to continue taxing themselves in order to pay for promotional efforts to attract visitors, keep the streets clean and assist the city in the upkeep of public infrastructure.
As the financiers of the Morgan Hill Downtown Property Based Improvement District, the parcel owners plan to renew the agreement with the city that established the PBID in 2006. The current five-year charter expires June 30, and a renewal before then could keep the PBID active for up to 10 more years.
PBID vice president Rocke Garcia, who owns the former Sunsweet lot at the southwest corner of Third and Depot streets, expects the property owners to be in support of a renewal.
“The money stays here,” Garcia said. “The farther (the money) gets from home, the harder it is to get it back.”
Since 2006, the PBID has used a special parcel tax to raise about $72,000 per year for promotional efforts and infrastructure improvements. The assessments were paid by the owners of about 100 downtown parcels, within the district’s boundaries of Main Avenue, Monterey Road, Del Monte Avenue and Butterfield Boulevard. About 75 percent of the revenues are spent in the “premium zone” of downtown, with the rest expended for improvements in the “standard zone.”
With that kind of budget, the district can’t fund major infrastructure projects, but it has been able to augment, complement and maintain the city’s, redevelopment agency’s and other organizations’ efforts to attract visitors downtown – often in unrecognized ways – according to property owners.
Examples of PBID work include advertising and sponsorship efforts to bring and keep events downtown – such as outdoor concerts and movies during the summer – as well as the completion of a public Wi-Fi project and the publication of newsletters.
Recent capital improvements include the installation of a loudspeaker system along the Third Street Promenade, sidewalk and street cleaning, new signs and a downtown directory display, new energy efficient tree lighting on Monterey Road, more electrical outlets, hanging flower baskets and new benches on downtown sidewalks.
The district, which is governed by a board of directors, regularly works with the Morgan Hill Downtown Association and Chamber of Commerce, and has a “working relationship” with the city and RDA, Garcia added.
The PBID also helps the city and RDA cover expenses related to high-dollar public infrastructure improvements and property purchases. When the RDA completes a project such as the Third Street Promenade which was built in 2009, or new monument signs, the agency cannot use its revenues to pay for the cleaning and maintenance of such facilities. But the PBID can use its funds for such items.
Plus, the RDA is a significant source of the PBID’s budget by default, as it pays assessments on the properties it owns downtown – including the Granada Theater, Downtown Mall, Royal Clothier, Caltrain parking lot, Community and Cultural Center and other sites.
The RDA’s payments to PBID accounted for about 42 percent of its total revenues – or $30,000 – last year, according to the district’s 2010 annual report. The city plans to redevelop downtown Morgan Hill in the coming years, and the PBID will complement those efforts.
“The PBID frequently does a lot of the unsung work,” councilman and RDA director Larry Carr said. “They do nice beautification projects downtown (for example) that really give the whole downtown a face lift, and improved the way it looks and feels.”
In the future, if the PBID is renewed and more visitors come to downtown, Carr envisions the district will remain an active partner in completing public benefit improvements, specifically in the acquisition and upkeep of more parking spaces.
The PBID has not yet announced its work plan or any specific projects it would implement if it is renewed, but Garcia said it will likely take over some of “the basics” that the city and RDA might struggle with in the face of continuing revenue shortfalls. That includes more street cleaning, sidewalk beautification, flower bed upkeep and garbage removal.
Furthermore, the district’s directors have been “conservative” the last five years and have not spent its entire annual budget, Garcia said. Owing to that practice, the PBID had a fund balance of about $95,000 last year, plus another $72,000 currently being held by the city which the PBID can claim when it is ready to spend the money. (Garcia said the city receives a better interest rate on the revenues than the district can get.)
The PBID’s total budget for last year was about $167,000, and its work plan for the current fiscal year included replacing garbage and recycling cans in some areas downtown, updating kiosk information, and the continued maintenance, upkeep and cleaning of previous district, RDA and city projects. Garcia does not anticipate significant opposition to the PBID’s renewal among downtown property owners, and the owners will not seek to expand the district’s boundaries.
BookSmart co-owner and PBID board member Brad Jones said an important aspect of the district is it illustrates a collaborative financing method to provide public services, downtown enhancements and keeping entertainment and special events going.
“One of the most important things to me is getting the property owners to work as a cohesive group that works for the benefit of downtown,” Jones said. “Instead of the property owners going off in their own direction, the PBID keeps them focused on working toward common goals.”
