Will BID Renewal Have Unintended Consequences?
It sure did in downtown Tulsa, where Michael Bates provided this report of a property owner who decided she would face a lower business improvement district bill by tearing down an old building and replacing it with an empty lot.
The building was on the market, but for most of the last few years it was under option to Global Development Corp, which had planned to build a stadium and mixed use development on the eastern edge of downtown, and then to John Williams, the Claremore developer who had been working on Wal-Mart, offices, and residential development in the area. While those plans were pending, it wasn’t available, even if someone had wanted to buy it and renovate it.
Mrs. Roberts hired a company out of Oklahoma City to take the building down. They would clear away all the concrete, even the basements, down to the dirt, take away the concrete, grind it down and recycle it as roadbuilding material. Another company she considered would only go four feet down and then fill it in with dirt. It was a sturdy building, and leaving the foundation might cause problems for the next building to go up on the site. She said that during the demolition many folks who used to work at the dairy came by to ask of a brick as a memento.
With the building pulled down, the property taxes are much lower (no improvements on the site) as is the ballpark assessment. She only has to pay a small amount of liability insurance. There are no more expenses to keep the building secured against intruders. Mrs. Roberts is hopeful that the land will be more attractive to potential buyers now that the building is not an obstacle to redevelopment.
In Tulsa, as in Oklahoma City, various tax policies have always seemed to favor such actions. To date I’ve yet to hear anyone try to address this issue with the upcoming business improvement district renewal for Oklahoma City. At this point I suspect it’s too late to act with a final vote set for Wednesday by the district’s board.
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This is not a small oversight.
Every new and existing policy should be revisited to make sure that we are incentivizing development that is in keeping with the goals we have set forth as a city. Which ostensibly, at least as it relates downtown, include adding housing, creating an active streetlife, making the urban fabric pedestrian-friendly, and spurring urban retail.
Our design guidelines, property taxes, and BID assessment are all executed in a way that does little to spur this type of development, but instead makes surface parking overly financially advantageous.
It is no surprise that instead of getting what we say we want – we just get more surface parking.