Speaker 1: Councilmember Andrews, please. Thank you. Motion carries a mixed item. I'm 27 as a report from Development Services with the recommendation to adopt the recommended revisions to the city's Mills Act property tax incentive program for properties.
Speaker 0: Okay. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Lowenthal and a seconded by Councilman Richardson. Any public comment on this item? I do have some some speakers. So let me let me do the public comment and then I'll go to the council for speakers. Please come forward.
Speaker 5: Good evening. Mayor Garcia and members of the city council. My name is Donna Sievers. I'm the vice president of the Bluff Heights Neighborhood Association. And after my own personal comments, I'd also like to share several comments with you from John Thomas, the president of our neighborhood association. Unfortunately, John is ill this evening, and he asked to have me also speak on his behalf. So I'm going to go very quickly. I'm pleased to be able to speak to you tonight in support of the Mills Act and hope you will unanimously vote to renew the Mills Act contracts, which will surely benefit the historical integrity of our city for decades to come. I first became interested in the Mills Act when my husband and I purchased a home on Vista Street four years ago because our house is now 100 years old and was in need of significant repairs. We had hoped for property tax relief to help finance many of those repairs. When I contacted our then city councilman, Gary DeLong, in 2011th November 2011, I was dismayed to hear that Long Beach had discontinued some new mills that contracts as the program has such merit. So I applaud the staff for their work regarding the reinstatement of the Mills Act and hope this recommendation does meet with your approval. I do hope, however, that you will consider other suggestions on who would benefit and be given priority for these contracts. I would like to suggest that while it appears reasonable to give priority to houses who are in need of significant restoration, I would also urge you to consider contracts for those newer homeowners like myself who pay a significantly higher property tax and therefore may have difficulty maintaining their homes over the next decades. In the city of Santa Ana, for example, awards for mills that contracts are given to homes that are in relatively good condition in order that the homeowner can continue to maintain their property. I believe if you only provide mills that contracts to those properties that are in major or total disrepair, you would be inadvertently providing a huge negative incentive to those of us who have taken all of our expendable income and maintained our homes. Those of us with high property tax rates and who are also on fixed incomes should be provided. Consideration and Future Mills Act so that our homes are not the neglected ones and will not deteriorate over time. When I researched the Long Beach Mills Act properties, I was also dismayed to see that 76% of the homes were were three multi family residents the Villa Riviera, the Lafayette and the El Cordova Apartments. While only 24% of the former contracts were given to single family homes. I would hope that our city would now more aggressively support single family residents in any future. Mills Act. So I'm going to skip over to John's comments real quick. John would like me to share with you that he hopes the application process will be streamlined and that a reduction in the fee to accomplish both the Landmarking and the Mills Act application would be appropriate. John also suggested that 100% of the.
Speaker 8: Owners of an H-2A must.
Speaker 5: Participate in order to for the property to be considered with the Mills Act. And he also supports the concept that a limited number of commercial nonresidential buildings be considered for mills that contracts. Finally, John and I would both like to share with you that despite any loss of revenue associated with the Mills Act, the benefit to the city of Long Beach will far outweigh that loss of revenue and will result in the preservation of our city's landmark structures. Thank you.
Speaker 9: Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening.
Speaker 7: Mayor Councilperson. My name is Maureen Neeley. I live on Termino Avenue in the third district. I'm speaking tonight as both a board member of Long Beach Heritage and a vice president of the Belmont Heights Community Association. Both groups are heartened to see the renewed interest by the city for an active, historic, landmark program and reinstatement of the Mills Act. However, both of the two historic districts in Belmont Heights, as well as Long Beach Heritage, have asked that the council review the proposed fees associated with the new ordinance for Landmarking and Mills Act applications. As proposed, the historic landmark application fee is over $900 to apply for the Mills Act. The cost is 1100 dollars per unit. On the face of it. Those costs don't look too terrible. And we recognize that Development Services seeks to pay for staff time by attributing fees. That's practical. However, these same fees may hamper the embrace of these tools by the very communities they are intending to help. In particular, single family homes and commercial properties must be identified as historic landmarks before they are eligible for the Mills Act. These two processes alone will cost over $2,000 for the property owner, with no guarantee the property will attain either status. Please consider reworking this section with either a partial return of fees or a pre-approval process before much time and money is invested. In addition, because staff time could be streamlined, a combo fee for applying for both of these could be preferred. The 1100 dollars fee for the Mills Act application is per unit. Right now, this is particularly onerous for owners of apartment homes as they cannot charge their tenants for the fee on each unit. Please consider reworking this cost, especially given that staff would only be working with one owner. One application. As a benchmark, local cities such as Pasadena, San Clemente and Los Angeles all use much lower fee structures to incentivize participation. So in closing, we know that a city like ours with numerous historic landmarks and numerous property owners using tax savings to restore their unique buildings, is a city filled with rich architecture, conscientious owners and a close knit, functioning city of neighborhoods. These are the very attributes that attract good business a creative class of residents and families seeking healthy, clean communities. Incentives such as those that we are discussing, go a long way to achieving these goals. Let's tweak the good base presented here tonight with the just a few adjustments to really get landmarking and the Mills Act working for all of Long Beach. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Good evening.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, Mayor. Council people. My name is Karen Berger. I live in California Heights, the city's largest historic district. And I was speaking on behalf of the board of directors of California Heights, its residents, and also as a member of the board of Long Beach Heritage. It's been a long time coming. The reinstatement of the Mills Act, it was initially suspended in 2006. That was the last time a contract had been approved. We applaud the fact that the city is moving in this direction. The existing contracts have been reviewed and we're pushing towards reinstatement. I also have concerns about the fees as the previous ordinance was written. If you were a contributing property in a historic district, you could apply for a Mills Act contract with a new proposal. Every home or building that applies for the Mills Out contract must also be listed as a landmark in the city of Long Beach. This basically almost doubles the fee for anybody who lives in a historic district. A lot of residents in our historic district, California Heights and the 16 other historic districts try to apply. The program was suspended and they have been patiently waiting for upwards of eight years for it to come back. And I think the fee structure needs to be investigated, it needs to be reviewed and comparisons to Los Angeles, Pasadena for either a sliding fee scale, maybe a smaller initial application. And then if you are able to achieve landmark status, move into the Mills Act. But as the previous speaker stated, to have upwards of $2,000 in fees paid upfront with no option of any refund is very discouraging to people in the historic districts. So I would encourage the support of the Mills Act. I would like to see a little bit of fine tuning of the fee structure and how it's positioned and also to speak to comparisons to the city of Anaheim. The city of Anaheim, currently as of 2014, has 286 mills that contracts. Long Beach has 34. So we have a lot of catching up to do to be basically relative to cities of a similar size and population. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 9: Thank you. And before the next speaker comes up. Ms.. BURDICK, I'm wondering if that I know that we have had discussions about the issue that our Speaker just mentioned regarding the fee for applicants for landmark status and the Mills Act participation. So is that something that you're considering right now? Yes, certainly. Madam Vice Mayor, members of the city council, we are looking at a potential combination fee, which I think was the term that was used, that if we are moving forward with both the Mills Act and the landmarking request, at the same time, we think that there is some cost savings that can be produced. We would analyze that and come back to the City Council when the master fee schedule is amended, which is currently scheduled for sometime in March. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Don.
Speaker 4: Denniston. I rise in opposition to the Mills Act. My understanding that something like a 10%.
Speaker 3: Discount on loans.
Speaker 4: For historic buildings. However, anything is considered historic. If you have a family there, it's done. It's really kind of a gimmick.
Speaker 3: The they get they get access to the loans if it had sentimental value, if they had a family living there. And furthermore.
Speaker 4: The architecture is not rich being replaced. Replacement means.
Speaker 11: New. New means rich.
Speaker 3: The architecture of the past. Has been surpassed.
Speaker 4: By other buildings more beautiful. Not only that, but it will encourage more construction. Ask the people living next to these historic homes.
Speaker 3: Why would they rather have a renovated home next to them or a brand new home, or maybe even a parking lot?
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Very good as the address. I would strongly disagree with the previous speaker. I think. Ole, ole, ole helms can remain very, very attractive and are an asset to the neighborhood. As I stated last week, when we were looking at the new design of the city, what's projected for the city hall, in my view, that's not ugly. There are some people that like that type of style. But. There's also homes that are I recognize that are homes that are modern style different than older homes. But I think one of the biggest assets this city has is its architectural diversity, and particularly the historic the older buildings. They add character to it. Right now, you want as I said last week or two weeks ago. What you're now proposing. I just. I know I don't want to get off too much in a tangent, but the modern buildings you're proposing here look nothing more than it's a duplicate of Parker Center downtown. So to whatever extent you have the capacity to help restore. Some of the of any old, older building. I think it's is an asset and it's money well spent in this city should concentrate on that and help people do that in any way they can. And it also pumps up the economy because you've got you've got people that are trades craftsmen that are specialized in that. And those are not always hard to find. So forth. Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Goodhew. Seeing no further speakers. I'll take it behind the rail. Councilmember Gonzalez Actually, there's only been a maker of the motion. Is there a seconder? Councilmember Gonzalez. Thank you.
Speaker 8: I first want to thank Amy and her team because this has been a really comprehensive plan, but it's something that I've been hearing for so long, especially having three of the 17 districts, historic districts in my in my district. It's been a long time coming. And so thank you for just being open and being able to answer a lot of our questions regarding regarding the Mills Act. I just wanted to clarify, though, you did say that you would bring back information on a masterpiece schedule and information regarding whether we can combine or reduce some fees.
Speaker 9: Yes, ma'am, that's correct. The master fee schedule is scheduled to come back sometime in March, and we would look to get an item on there where we can do a combined fee because we do need to keep the fees separate right now because we do have existing landmarks in the city that are not do not have Mills Act contracts. So we still do need to keep the fees separate. We've looked at our fee schedule for what they are now and then we do incorporate full cost recovery. So I'm not able to recommend at this point any reduction in those fees without asking for a subsidy from the general fund. But I will be coming back to you with the master fee schedule update with a combination fee.
Speaker 8: Okay, great. And I know that there had been some talk about the reduction in the general fund, about 100 and something thousand dollars. But was there a projected projected revenue from this at all? And I mean, can we even foresee what that might be?
Speaker 7: There really isn't.
Speaker 9: Revenue per say that is generated to the city. I think it might enhance the the value of the property and we might recoup some of that. We spent a lot of time talking to the L.A. County assessor on how they handled Mills Act contracts countywide. And the the contracts are really negligible in terms of of what they will affect the general fund on. This is a worst case scenario that we provided you up to $200,000 a year if we were to able to to process all of these contracts within the first five years. So I don't think that the hit to the general fund is really going to be anything that's negligible.
Speaker 8: It's not significant at all, which is good. Okay. And the participation from the highways and we discuss that a little bit. I had asked you about that. And can you just touch on that a little bit more just so we can get a clear picture of how that may look?
Speaker 9: Correct. Right now, we have three units, three buildings that have multiple units in them. And not all of those buildings, not all of the units within those buildings participate. It makes that extremely difficult for the highway.
Speaker 7: And it sets up.
Speaker 9: Inequity between the individual unit owners. We would like to give priority to those buildings as well that have partial or a partial compliance. And we would recommend as part of this that going forward that 100% of the units in a multi-unit building must participate with the involvement of the HRA. The individual tax benefit will still derive to the individual unit owner, but the ATO is typically going to be the one that's going to be implementing building wide improvements, such as replacing windows or painting or repointing the brick. So it really is beneficial to have the H-2A involved and act as the agent to all the individual unit owners.
Speaker 8: Great. Okay. Those are all my questions. Thank you very much.
Speaker 9: Councilmember Mongo. Councilmember Price. Sorry. Councilmember Mongo.
Speaker 7: I think misspoke, did an excellent job discussing the assessor's side of it. I pulled up the website to give that out as an opportunity once people received their Middlesex contracts. How they can apply for their exemptions.
Speaker 0: Councilman Price.
Speaker 5: Thank you. And I apologize. I misspoke. I was talking to the mayor while you were answering the vice mayor question. So I don't know if you answered this, but one of the speakers raised what I thought was a good point about what happens if someone doesn't qualify. Can you address that? If you have already, I apologize, but I didn't hear it.
Speaker 9: I did not address that answer. But that's typically something that we work through. Even on regular applications, there is an ability for the city to refund processing fees up to a certain percent if it's going to be a failed application. We typically do not like to bring failed applications forward. It creates an environment of negativity for both the city and for the business or the property owner. So if we have reached a point in the process where we thought that a Mills Act contract would not be viable or that.
Speaker 7: Landmarking would not be viable, we would stop that process and really.
Speaker 9: Ask them if they wanted to relieve themselves of the process and then they would be eligible for a partial refund. But we have standard.
Speaker 7: Procedures for doing that in.
Speaker 9: The municipal code. So those were just apply here as well.
Speaker 5: And I know I reached out to you, it was either very late last night or early this morning. I'm not sure about I'm not sure either. It may have been sometime after midnight, but my my question was about the fees in particular. And again, I apologize if you've answered it, but as you've explained it to me, this is purely a cost recovery fee, correct?
Speaker 9: We do have current fees for both the Mills Act and the landmarking. We would ask.
Speaker 7: That those remain as is because it is pure cost.
Speaker 9: Recovery. But I did suggest that we could come back with a combination fee for new applications and we would come back as part of the master fee schedule update in a couple of months.
Speaker 5: And what what do you envision the combination fee? What would you envision included in that?
Speaker 9: We would I can't tell you what that.
Speaker 7: Fee would be without doing the analysis.
Speaker 9: We literally estimate the entire process and how much staff time it would take to go through the entire process. But since it would be essentially two processes and a lot of the information is very similar in terms of the program of improvements that they're going to be making and the background research of the building and whether it would qualify as a landmark. There's a lot of overlap in that research and that's where we can do the fee reduction.
Speaker 5: In terms of that fee not knowing what it's going to be. Is it is it fair to assume that that, too, is going to be purely a cost recovery?
Speaker 9: Absolutely.
Speaker 7: We don't offer any other fees except for cost recovery.
Speaker 9: We're not allowed to do that.
Speaker 5: And we're not in a position at this at this point to be able to absorb the costs associated with that in our current budget.
Speaker 9: That is correct. We we have to do cost recovery or I would have to ask for a subsidy from the general fund.
Speaker 5: Absent a subsidy from the general fund, is there any other way for this program to go forward?
Speaker 9: Just the fees that are charged? Yes.
Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: I have a very long thought to have it queued up once more. Okay.
Speaker 9: I actually took a pass while I was in your seat. So I wanted to just ask a question myself. I think this may have been addressed, but please remind me one of the original concerns regarding reinstating the Mills Act program was the ability to confirm what residents were doing, what type of work that they were doing, and how their tax reductions were spent, whether on restoring or maintaining the restored property. And so you I trust that you're confident that with the reintroduction of the new program, you will have an opportunity and able staff to monitor those property investments? Yes, ma'am. We've learned quite a lot from doing the reviews of the existing contracts, and we've also learned what makes a good contract and the documentation that's required. So a new applicant would be required to provide us with a program of reinvestment into the property. And we would suggest that the majority of the time those improvements are going to be to the exterior of a building and not in the interior. The value of the mills art contract is that that it should be restoring things that are viewed by the public or within the public realm. And so, you know, a landmark building that has a publicly accessible lobby that is also called out in the landmarking ordinance for that building, they could clearly qualify and use the Mills Act subsidy to make investments in that public lobby. But if it was a private unit with private improvements on the interior, the value of that for an exchange for the public subsidy is is clearly diminished. So when the owner comes forward and they show us and document the value of the improvements that they intend to make, that is actually part of the contract. And the contract allows us to do an annual inspection if we so choose. The state law does require us to do it periodically, and so we are required to do that periodically now under recent revisions to state law. And so that's something that we must do. Thank you and I appreciate that. I wanted to share that. I'm very pleased to see this program return. I know the hiatus was quite lengthy and and I appreciate the staff work that's gone into bringing us back this program. In this iteration, our office receives inquiries about the Mills Act on a regular basis, which isn't too surprising given the number of historic districts and high rises in District two. I appreciate the input that we have from members of the historic preservation community, such as John Thomas and Anna maria McGowan and the individuals who came to speak before us today. Thank you to each of you that has been here, and I know you've been here through the entire process. What we might lose in the immediate tax revenue at the city level, which we had our staff identify a few moments ago, I know that we'll certainly gain this in community and corridor character and ultimately increased property values in the future as these gems are restored and our city's rich history is told through its architecture. And that's the beauty of Long Beach. You have many, many neighborhoods, whether historic or not, but really many neighborhoods, one great city. And I think this reinstating this program will help us restore that and be able to tell that narrative from our streetscape. One of the interesting things about our city that's different from I think other cities is a lot of our home frontages they do front out into the street scape in a way that other cities don't as openly. We're sort of that that inside out as opposed to the other way and you have a lot of alcoves and and nooks and other cities where you don't see the character of the homes as as quickly as you do in Long Beach. And Long Beach is different that way. I don't know that we're specifically unique, but in driving through other major cities, I do notice that that's a difference here. And so to be able to allow residents to tap into this when possible in order to restore and and ensure that we we preserve the character of our architecture, it's important. So I'm really appreciative of the inclusion of of the nonresidential or commercial buildings in the program under a certain threshold. I think that's very important. There are many historic commercial buildings that contribute to our city's historic fabric. And given all the hard work that we put into our adaptive reuse policy, which took us a few years to bring online, we know that the city's commercial building may end up being tomorrow's residential building. And so I'm very grateful for that, that we have the foresight working with the stakeholders to see that and be able to put that in. So again, thank you to our staff for your due diligence, Miss Burdick, especially you and your team. You've seen this through for several years. And so with that, I do support this recommendation and staff's commitment to looking at a reduction in the combined application fees. And I'm thankful that you're looking at that. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. That that concludes both the council and public comment. There is a motion by Vice Mayor Lowenthal on a second by Councilwoman Gonzalez. Please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: The motion carries eight votes.
Speaker 0: Next item.
Recommendation to adopt recommended revisions to the City’s Mills Act Property Tax Incentive Program for historic properties.  (Citywide)