What can the City of Gilroy do to inject more life into downtown?
That’s the question City staff asked more than 30 residents and business owners at a “not well publicized” community meeting last week.
Gilroy Development Center Director Lee Butler, who is spearheading the City’s outreach effort for its downtown action plan that kicked off at its Sept. 25 public meeting, said the next step in the process is assembling an online survey to gather a wider breadth of community input.
He hopes the online survey, which will be posted on the City’s website at an undetermined date in the coming months will “have a bigger turnout” since people will be able to complete it any time, every day until it’s closed sometime in November or December.
After that, the City will analyze data from the survey and deliver a presentation to City Council on where and how public funds should be spent fixing downtown Gilroy.
“This information is going to be really useful, not just in my work, but for the entire City in informing what we do to care for, enliven and revitalize our vested interest in downtown,” Butler said.
During the meeting, some of the sticking points brought up by attendees – which consisted mostly of downtown business owners and Gilroy residents and a handful of City staff – included unreinforced masonry and vacant buildings; downtown parking; and the need for a stronger relationship between business owners in general.
“I think we had a lot of folks here and a lot of good input,” said Butler of the meeting. “I think the online survey will triple, quadruple the responses.”
Several audience members present at the Sept. 27 meeting, however, lamented the lack of publicity before the meeting. The Gilroy Downtown Business Association posted a notice on its Facebook page Sept. 16 and the event was not posted to the City’s online community calendar.
Others pointed out they would have liked to see a larger mix of attendees as well as public officials at the meeting. The only public official present, aside from eight City staffers and Police Chief Denise Turner, was Planning Commissioner Paul Kloecker.
During the meeting, Butler presented a list of 65 options – compiled by City staff – for the overall improvement of downtown. Attendees were asked to rank their top five.
“Obviously the City can’t do everything,” said Butler at the opening of the public meeting. “There may be other options that we come up with – but there are limited resources in terms of staff time, in terms of money and the pursuit of grants.”
Out of the 65 options, Butler said there were a few items that stuck out as high priorities.
Mayor Don Gage said the Downtown City Action Plan and “Quality of Life” bond measure he proposed in May go hand-in-hand. The measure would provide the City with a massive cash injection to tackle capital improvement projects – such as downtown’s unreinforced masonry buildings and park improvements – in one fell swoop. The $25 to $35 million measure would likely be levied as an assessment added to homeowners’ property tax bills for 30 years. Gage wants to put the subject before voters on the November 2014 ballot.
“We have some ideas in terms of what needs to be done, but we want to run this through the people to be sure that’s what they want,” Gage said. “They’ll be the ones paying for it.”
Gilroy Finance Director Christina Turner said the City recognizes ongoing revenues are “insufficient to fund new capital projects.” She said Gage’s proposed bond measure could be used for a series of potential capital projects.
The No. 1 item that downtown business owners view as a priority, based on the results of the Sept. 25 meeting, includes addressing downtown’s habitual problem stemming from 18 vacant unreinforced masonry buildings (edifices deemed structurally unfit to survive a high-magnitude earthquake).
Gary Walton, a local developer, contractor and downtown advocate, isn’t surprised that ranked first. But he’s not waiting for the City to act.
Walton told the Dispatch Wednesday he’s been contacting various property owners in downtown Gilroy to see how they feel about creating their own association of downtown property owners as a way of unifying and starting to take responsibility for downtown Gilroy as a whole.
“There is a tremendous opportunity in Gilroy for a vibrant downtown, for a sense of community,” Walton said. “There’s a broader purpose of [downtown areas]. It’s called community building.”
“I think the property owners are way too passive,” Walton continued. “They have the motivation, whether that’s increased profit, property values or rent, to start doing things and leading instead of following and letting the City try to figure it out. The City’s been at this for 30 to 40 years. They should have their own interest and not expect the City to do it for them.”
Butler said the second most popular item identified by members of the public at the meeting was addressing crime and perceptions of public safety in downtown Gilroy.
Potential zoning policy changes and potentially waiving development fees for more downtown businesses as a way to spur growth tied for third, he said. The installation of outdoor dining was also an important topic to attendees, Butler added.
“The next step in this outreach effort is we’re going to get all the feedback written out so we have a comprehensive list from what we’ve gathered,” Butler said.
