Kudos to the Morgan Hill City Council for unanimously voting on
July 26 to place 2004 Measure C revisions on the November ballot.
The measure will ask voters in November to allow 100 additional
housing units downtown, above the 250 annual allotments currently
allowed.
Kudos to the Morgan Hill City Council for unanimously voting on July 26 to place 2004 Measure C revisions on the November ballot. The measure will ask voters in November to allow 100 additional housing units downtown, above the 250 annual allotments currently allowed.
Proponents of the change say the extra dwellings are necessary to boost a downtown core that has struggled over the last two decades as the city’s population has mushroomed but more and more shopping dollars have migrated elsewhere.
Voters will decide if downtown housing and mixed-use project developments can occur within a more concentrated and flexible timeframe to allow earlier implementation of the city’s downtown plan.
We believe the revisions are necessary as we think it makes no sense for the city to allow nearly 400 allotments within the downtown boundaries, but which under the current restrictions can’t be occupied until 2010. The projects are needed now, not six years later.
We urge council members to draft appropriate procedures for awarding the additional projects and to heed Morgan Hill planning commissioner Ralph Lyle’s concerns that the change could benefit a select group of downtown property owners.
Developers with deep pockets are interested in the change. We think that’s good, particularly if it’s going to transform the city’s downtown into a vibrant mix of properly planned commercial and residential units. We urge planners to carefully think out the logistics of such a change, looking at other successful downtowns in cities such as Los Gatos, Palo Alto and Saratoga.
City leaders, aided by the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, should carefully select who will be allowed in the city’s core so businesses given allotments won’t compete with the 650,000-square-foot Cochrane Road shopping center coming to town next summer.
Morgan Hill residents need downtown and other shopping options besides the Gilroy outlets. We believe lifting the Measure C restrictions will take the “foot off the throat of downtown” as expressed by BookSmart owner Brad Jones. We need to stop spending millions in shopping dollars elsewhere and begin investing them in our city. Amending the city’s restrictions on how many housing units are allowed downtown every year is one of the ways to do it.
We also applaud the vote taken recently by downtown property owners who agreed to tax themselves to generate $75,000 annually to beautify the city’s core. We agree with downtown property owners that the tax will bolster capital improvement projects that will bring more shoppers to the city’s core.
The money from the tax district will help continue the work of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, which will likely be named to manage the funds. The city has supported the downtown association financially since 2002, granting more than $300,000 for its operation. But the city has also asked the organization to create a self-funding mechanism. The downtown property tax district accomplishes that.
The agreement for a new tax district comes one year after a similar bid failed. Former Morgan Hill Downtown Association Executive Director Dan Craig – who stepped down at the end of June – worked to reduce the scope of the tax district so fewer property owners would be impacted. Earlier this year, a petition of property owners showed there was likely enough interest among potential payers to generate more than 50 percent of the total assessment – minus the city’s $24,000.
The proposed Measure C revisions and the new downtown property improvement district will go a long way at helping attract a younger crowd eager to shop and have fun while living in the city.
