The group of property and business owners who are aiming to form a Business Improvement District (BID) in the Village agreed on a budget last Friday, but the likelihood that a business district will be established by the end of 2014 is doubtful.
Based on a general consensus of Village property owners present at Friday’s meeting, a $148,512 budget with a five percent annual increase was approved.
The group also agreed on a five-year term for this proposed BID in the heart of Pacific Palisades: both sides of Sunset from Carey Street west to Via de la Paz, including businesses on Monument, La Cruz, Swarthmore and Via de la Paz.
Steve Gibson of Urban Place Consulting, who has been hired by the group to facilitate the process, told the steering committee that it’s unlikely the timelines and deadlines will be met next year.
In all likelihood, and if everything is approved, the BID committee will probably not become official until early 2015, Gibson said. Because a BID is a tax district, its establishment requires significant coordination with the City Clerk’s office, a public hearing process and approval by the City Council.
“The hardest part of the process is the petition drive,” Gibson said. Property owners representing more than 50 percent of the proposed assessment “to be paid” would have to sign the petition before the district management plan moves to the City Council for review.
There are 54 individual property owners/investment entities and 78 parcels in this proposed business district. BIDs raise funds through fees assessed to property owners and invest them back into the boundaries of the district through various services.
The initial Palisades budget includes $75,600 allocated for cleaning and beautification work, such as pressure washing of sidewalks, additional trash collection and tree trimming, and $13,000 for marketing that would include a Village BID Web site, special events and destination marketing. The rest of the budget is administrative services, reserve, BID establishment fees and an annual 2-percent fee that goes to the City.
Once the petition is signed by the required number of property owners, the City would adopt an ordinance of “intention to establish the BID” and then send ballots to all the owners asking them whether they want to establish a district with a yes or no vote, Gibson said. This vote would again be weighted by the amount of assessment paid by each property owner. However, unlike the petition, this step these would only calculate the ballots returned.
The group will meet again on April 12 to decide on what assessment method will be used to calculate each property owner’s fee in the district. Methods used for assessing the fees are based on square footage formulas, which could include a combination of building area percentages, lot space and even frontage.
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