While considering options on how to address empty storefronts on Main Street, members of the Pendleton City Council weighed the goal of improving the downtown area against private property rights.
The city council met Tuesday, Nov. 12, for a second work session with Charles Denight, Pendleton Urban Renewal associate director, to discuss how to create policies to promote commercial building occupancy in the downtown area.
Denight said if the council plans to proceed then it has to weigh in on how to develop restrictions on property owners who leave their storefronts empty.
Denight told the council the bigger issue is “whether people feel comfortable having an ordinance that would fine or charge a fee to building owners who don’t actively participate in trying to get their storefronts occupied when they’re empty.”
According to the staff report, the empty storefronts are a particular problem around the first block of South Main Street.
City Manager Robb Corbett said the city has had problems for years with particular building owners who neglect their buildings and make no effort to rent the space. Empty stores include the former Wicked Kitty, Mosa and Academy Mortgage spaces.
“I think there’s a problem with forcing people into commerce that use the property and choose to not engage in commerce,” City Councilor Dale Primmer said. “I think there’s a fundamental property rights issue here that bothers me.”
City Councilor Sally Brandsen said the council’s goal is to revitalize downtown.
“People don’t buy a house next to a home if they don’t like how that neighborhood is, or how it looks. That’s a personal thing,” she said. “Downtown is public, and it’s for everyone. We’re trying to provide tourism, we’re trying to get foot traffic, we’re trying to support all the businesses.”
According to the staff report, vacant storefronts lead to a decline in community standards, affect economic development, depress property values and reduce the attractiveness of the area as a place to shop and dine.
“I think if we want to keep it downtown and to keep a dense commerce, we can’t just sit by as people mistreat their social responsibility that comes with owning a building with Main Street or downtown frontage,” City Councilor Addison Schulberg said.
Primmer said although commercial property is the council’s present priority, he is concerned about future councilors wanting to regulate residential space.
“Where are the guardrails?” he asked.
Pendleton Mayor John Turner said he has wrestled with that same issue.
Turner said he attended a League of Oregon Cities conference Oct. 17-19 where he learned from other mayors that some cities are either working on or have passed ordinances that address vacant properties.
Warrenton, near Astoria, enacted a local law stating vacant buildings are a cause and source of blight in residential and nonresidential neighborhoods, especially when the person in charge of the building fails to maintain and manage the building to ensure it does not become a liability to the neighborhood.
“It’s really a speck in our building property inventory. Why would anybody not want to rent their spaces and make money from that rent? It’s because they have some special issue,” Denight said. “In one case, the special issue is an owner who doesn’t like us and then the other is an owner who lives far away from here, who inherited the building, has probably minimal property tax costs, and couldn’t be bothered to come up and take a look at it and do something about trying to fix it up and get it amended.”
City attorney Nancy Kerns said she would draft an ordinance that required store owners to communicate with Denight or other city agents and instruct the building owners to submit a plan for their property and provide details of the condition of their storefront. Failure to do so, Kerns said, would result in a penalty.
After Kerns drafts an ordinance, the council will decide if the vacant storefront regulations should be moved to a third work session or a first public reading.
We’re a small city. To be sufficient and successful. We need to be pretty and likeable to walk. Get a rail bus so elderly and disability
can be downtown enjoy the city. The young can walk it because it’s already that . When the Round up is here everyone is there. Also. Tern down dumps. Build up scale housing down town. This will make business owners
Proud and support her
While I understand that the city wants to have down town thrive, I do not like the idea of punishing the owners of the buildings for having them empty. If there were businesses asking to rent those spaces, I am sure they would be rented. If the city is so opposed to empty commercial spaces, maybe they should make Pendleton a more welcoming community to new businesses. Maybe instead of punishing property owners, they might consider providing incentives to bring in more business to down town.
There have businesses contacted about renting/and or buying their empty buildings, the empty Wicked Kitty and the old Micheal’s Jewelers buildings. The Wicked Kitty refuses to rent her buildings and has told me so when I called. The Main Street Cowboys have checked with several building owners. The city should fine the owners, especially if businesses are looking to go downtown. Also, the high rent the owners charge are keeping some prospective business out of the downtown area.
There have been surveys galore on how to enhance the downtown area. Residents have been asked what they’d like to see. Unfortunately the average shopper has not a clue how expensive it is to operate a retail business. Just a look at the transformation of Hermiston with a population nearly half the size of Pendleton. Unlike Pendleton city officials that offered incentives to lure businesses from other parts of town to the downtown, Hermiston officials actively courted large companies and the jobs that come with them. The housing market boomed with new construction and new small businesses followed suit as the customer base dramatically increased. Pendleton City planners and the Urban Renewal director like to boast of having spent $7million to draw 144 new residents to the downtown area yet nearly every project they’ve completed has not provided new parking and in some cases actually reduced it. Those businesses like the Salvation Army and CAPECO that are a magnet for the homeless are located in the very same downtown area that they are trying to attract new retail development. Without a strong customer base new businesses can’t survive. Without the many good paying jobs like those available in Hermiston growth will be stagnant and internet shopping will prevail.