WILLITS >> The Willits Revitalization and Economic Development Committee is reviewing a proposal to require owners of vacant commercial buildings in the city to register and to maintain those buildings. The committee, along with several business owners, discussed the draft of a “vacant commercial building ordinance” presented by City Planner Dusty Duley during a recent meeting.
“This is a draft,” Duley emphasized to the committee, often referred to as the Revit-ED Committee. “It’s a first attempt.”
The draft begins with a purpose statement that reads this way: “Recognizing that abandoned and vacant buildings contribute to the blight in the City, discourage economic development and retard appreciation of property values, endanger public health and safety, attract criminal activity, and create fire hazards, it is the responsibility of property owners to prevent buildings from becoming a burden to the neighborhood and community and a threat to the public health, safety, and welfare.”
Duley told the committee that he drew from other documents to create the draft, and after the meeting he mentioned ordinances in Cloverdale and in Wilmington, Del. as two sources. Duley’s draft proposed that owners of vacant commercial buildings pay a fee “if greater than 50 percent of the commercial units within the building have been unoccupied for over 45 day.”
“We’re looking at capturing a small fee so we can register the building,” he said.
The registration, he said, would help the city to create a list of vacant buildings that could then be of use to people seeking to rent commercial space.
“For a nominal fee it becomes a tool where the city can try to help get a business into your location,” he said.
Exceptions in Duley’s draft existed for, among other conditions, owners using “a valid permit for alterations or rehabilitation, excluding standard maintenance and repairs …”
The committee, along with several business owners who attended the meeting, discussed a host of issues surrounding the prospective ordinance, including possible insurance requirements for business owners, the schedule and types of maintenance owners would be required to perform and the size of the registration fee itself — along with the size of penalties for not paying the fee. They also considered how much the fee may rise with each year that a building remains vacant.
Committee Chair Holly Madrigal suggested a tentative amount for the initial fee.
“Would we be OK to have $100 serve as our placeholder?” she proposed.
Several business owners attended Thursday’s meeting, and Tony Madrigal, owner of El Mexicano in Willits, offered a caution about the proposed 45-day period for determining vacancy.
“I would say, give that person 90 days to get it fixed up,” he said. “I’d want a little more than 45 days.”
Duley said he intended the 45-day period as a starting point and had no objection to such a change.
People who attended Thursday’s meeting also scrutinized the language of the draft, pointing out the need for specificity.
“I think using the word blight is really vague,” said Greta Kanne, owner of The Book Juggler in Willits, “and without a definition of blight earlier … you’re setting yourself up for some problems because it’s subjective.”
The word “blight” appears in the initial purpose section as well as in the “maintenance requirements” section of the draft.
Committee member Bill Barksdale offered up definitions of blight he’d found in other jurisdictions that he said clarified the word — and underlined the relevant issues — by associating it with “devaluing real estate and the tax base of our community.”
The concept of such a registration fee has been under discussion for some time, Duley said, in response to the presence of vacant commercial buildings in the city. At the committee’s last meeting, on July 19, members authorized Duley to create the draft.
“The group directed me to look into establishing an ordinance to create this registration fee requirement,” he said.
Duley said he plans to distribute a revised draft to committee members before its Oct. 11 meeting. The plan, ultimately, is to present a proposal to the Willits City Council.
Those attending the meeting also discussed the concept of erecting signs promoting Willits, particularly once the bypass is operating. That’s another topic the Revit-ED Committee has been considering.
“From the highway standpoint we’re looking at many different things,” Duley said after the meeting. “We’re looking at billboard type signage where we rent an existing one or try to establish our own new one … And then we’re also looking for Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) to put up signage.”
