We’re glad that someone is finally paying some attention to
downtown
– kudos to the members of the Downtown Specific Plan Task Force
for their volunteer efforts to craft a vision for Gilroy’s
beleaguered city center.
We’re glad that someone is finally paying some attention to downtown – kudos to the members of the Downtown Specific Plan Task Force for their volunteer efforts to craft a vision for Gilroy’s beleaguered city center.
That said, we’re a bit perplexed by the move by the Downtown Specific Plan Task Force to brand certain types of businesses “undesirable” and to convince City Council to approve temporarily banning them.
It’s not that we want to discourage anyone from tackling downtown’s myriad problems – far from it. It’s just that downtown’s problems run far deeper than the type of businesses that the downtown task force is worrying about.
The fact that “head” shops, tattoo parlors, used car lots and junk yards might find downtown Gilroy an attractive place to do business – while bookstores, florists, stationers, cafes, and other more desirable retailers do not – is a symptom, not the disease. Cure the disease of civic neglect of downtown Gilroy and the symptom should disappear on its own.
Downtown needs an overall vision that leaders and the majority of the community share, accompanied by a creative, workable plan to achieve that vision and the commitment to making it happen, before many “desirable” businesses will locate there.
Downtown needs a vision that will unite Gilroy’s assets – wineries, Bonfante Gardens, the outlets, to name just a few – with an appealing, vibrant city center that gives people a reason to stop and spend some time and money, rather than a place to avoid the snaking traffic medians.
Downtown needs creative thinking – especially in these tight economic times – to find ways to pay for the large-scale changes it so desperately needs, and to find ways to attract desirable businesses, rather than just banning “undesirable” shops.
Let’s make sure that while we’re taking an analgesic to ease downtown’s pain, we’re not ignoring the illness that’s causing it. In the case of downtown Gilroy, we diagnose a lack of attention, vision, creative thinking and commitment as the cause of the city center’s sorry state.
Without a cure for those problems, a temporary ban on so-called undesirable businesses is a Band-Aid, at best.
