By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost
The discussion continues about how to best revitalize the business environment in Los Alamos. One idea is a proposed vacancy ordinance, which was presented to the public during a County town hall Monday night in an effort to collect questions and comments.
The town hall was attended by approximately 50 people including County Councilors David Izraelevitz, Denise Derkacs and Sean Williams.
The ordinance, according to Nov. 16 County Council agenda documents when it was introduced, would provide for the registration of vacant commercial buildings in the County, establish registration requirements and fees, fix penalties for violations and provide enforcements.
This is not a new idea, other municipalities in New Mexico have adopted their own versions of vacancy ordinances.
During Monday’s town hall, MainStreet Director Lauren McDaniel presented a white paper about similar ordinances in the state.
“The primary objective of a vacant building ordinance is essentially to help control and mitigate vacant buildings and lots, protect community health, safety and welfare and also provide legal defense for municipalities to enact anti-neglect ordinances,” she said.
It seems the ordinances’ successes are up in the air.
McDaniel pointed out that Las Vegas, N.M., and Tucumcari adopted vacancy ordinances but neither enforce them due to a lack of resources. She added that property owners need to take it upon themselves to register vacant properties and they are not doing that.
Amendments to the Las Vegas ordinance are being prepared and Tucumcari rescinded its ordinance and focused instead on the nuisance and dangerous building ordinance, McDaniel said.
Deputy County Manager Linda Matteson reported on the ordinance adopted by Raton. She said Raton has a population of 6,000 and its ordinance is for both commercial and residential properties. The city also created two positions to create and maintain a database of vacant properties. The ordinance was recently adopted but Matteson said the city reports seeing some improvements. She reported the number of vacancies in Raton is about a 85/15 percent between residential and commercial properties. The purpose behind the ordinance was to give out-of-towners “a little wakeup call,” she said.
To make the ordinance successful there are best practices to follow, McDaniel said. These practices include discouraging property owners to keep buildings vacant, enforce registration of vacant buildings in a coordinated and consistent way and require, at minimum, annual inspections of the buildings by police, fire and Public Works. Furthermore, she said there should be a registry of vacant buildings, minimum aesthetic requirements, negotiations with property owners for an improvement plan for assessing penalty fees and a requirement that out-of-town owners assign a local agent to maintain properties and keep them in compliance. Finally, when registering a vacant building, the owner should provide liability insurance.
Many who attended the town hall wondered how the ordinance would be enforced.
Central Park Square General Manager Patrick Sullivan said the vacant commercial properties that come into his mind are Mari Mac, Hilltop House, Motel 6, CB FOX and the old gas station across from the high school.
“My question, given the way this ordinance is written with fines of a few hundred dollars, how is this intended to actually impact change on those property owners who, by the way, are all out of town,” he asked.
Another speaker echoed this thought, wondering what would happen if the owner refuses to do anything and if the ordinance would apply to buildings that are currently vacant.
Izraelevitz said the vacancy ordinance applies to buildings that have been abandoned for more than 180 days and believed that the count for number of days vacant would begin after the ordinance is passed. He added that communication with the Raton City Manager has been beneficial in drafting an effective ordinance for Los Alamos.
Local resident Aaron Walker said he felt the fees were too low and that landlords would consider them insignificant.
Other residents felt the ordinance is focusing on the wrong thing.
Local landlord Shannon C’deBaca said she felt the ordinance’s objective was to poke the big developers such as Kroger with a stick but “what it is going to do is end up hurting the smaller developers … to me… the interpretation of the codes, not the codes themselves, but the County and the Fire Marshall’s interpretations of codes have been all over the map costing us time and development dollars …”
Others said they felt the real heart of the matter was property prices in Los Alamos.
Kevin Talley, who opened Inspired Jewelers with his wife through the Los Alamos Retail Accelerator program, said trying to find an affordable commercial space is a challenge.
”I walk downtown and I make phone calls to property owners saying, ‘Hey, I’m interested in your one story section of this giant building … and it’s being held hostage; if you want this downtown storefront you get to buy the whole $3 million property,” he said. “…small businesses cannot come up with $3 million to do something; we can’t come up with a million dollars to buy a building … but if we had some sort of investment or some sort of structure to make it easier, then people would be happier to try to make things happen.”
Williams, who co-owns Automotive Professionals, which moved from Los Alamos to Santa Fe, agreed. He said it is cheaper to run a business in Santa Fe than in Los Alamos and “until that problem is solved there is not going to be much small business here.”
The fundamental question, he added, is will this ordinance change that.
Local resident George Chandler questioned the entire ordinance. This is a multi-dimensional problem, and the County should have spoken to the public before writing the ordinance, he said. Furthermore, Chandler said the ordinance should be drafted to the overall strategy of developing Los Alamos’s economy.
What is currently written is not great, he added.
“This ordinance is terrible,” Chandler said. “It’s no good. It’s bad law … it’s incomprehensible, it’s unenforceable. It’s missing key definitions. You should just discard this ordinance and start over and do it as part of a grand strategy.”
Los Alamos County Council will hold a public hearing about the ordinance during its Feb. 1 meeting.
