Please take a moment to read. THEN contact your City Council rep & County Commissioner: For those that wanted to read the editorial but cant get into Gazette site: My Turn: Lack of codes allows some downtown buildings to sit and ruin Published: Thursday, October 23, 2014 at 04:30 PM. After many, many long conversations with merchants, potential merchants and entrepreneurs, customers, and downtown enthusiasts, I have found some long-ignored yet important questions regarding Gastonia’s downtown redevelopment. There does not appear to be a blight ordinance in the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), nor in business regulations available on the city’s website. Yet many of the vacant buildings on Main Avenue obviously require this -- broken windows, filthy or broken awnings and trash all visible from sidewalks. At least current merchants would benefit from such regulations. Some owners of these beautiful, historic buildings seem to be willing to let them sit and run down. Many small businesses that have tried to rent these buildings found they were expected, by the building owners, to pay for the structures being brought up to functioning, working condition, even before starting work on their own up-fitting. Is it realistic to think that a small start-up has the cash flow, or even ability to create a vision, starting from apparent rubble? How does this encourage businesses to move into downtown? And many of the asking rent prices rival that of Uptown Charlotte. It would appear that the building owners are content to let these structures sit empty to use as tax write-offs. Or maybe they just lack the incentives to invest further. But this is not the most troubling problem. The real issue, according to some merchants, is that the city has not provided codes for these structures to meet. Ergo, our beautiful Victorian and Art Deco ladies sit crumbling. How does any of this help grow the tax base? If City Council does not follow through on the financial investments that have already been made in downtown, maybe out of a sense of pride the owners will take responsibility for keeping their units up. Some landlords have already done just this by providing working plumbing, electric, air and ensuring support structures are adequately in place. However, without codes many building owners are content to let future, non-existent tenants take all this responsibility.This state of limbo is hindering the city’s revenue, merchants’ businesses, and the community’s desire to have a thriving downtown district once more. Furthermore, if earthquakes continue to increase in the area, these remnants of our city’s once powerful past could be lost forever, just as some already have been lost to condemning. I am assured I speak for legions of others citizens and small business owners, when I send out a call to Gastonia City Council to issue or update those codes immediately. Create a means by which owners can meet those codes. Tax incentives may be helpful, as well as penalties for letting them lapse. Moreover, could not monies from the “special property tax” these owners pay, go into a matching fund? The building owners may know where these funds go, but the merchants are never made aware of the use of these “downtown funds.” Before festivals and parties, we need inhabitable buildings! After all, Gastonia is the county seat. As such, shouldn’t the county contribute, at least in some way, to this redevelopment effort? Being on the National Registry of Historic Places, should our downtown not reflect a sense of pride in whom we were, who we are, and all that we are striving to be again? This is just a starting point, but one that many of us feel must first be addressed if true economic growth and downtown redevelopment issues are going to be taken seriously. A changing of the guard at the conference center was a good first step. Now it is time to get down to real foundational issues.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:54:30 +0000
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