Recommendation to request City Manager to provide an update on how Long Beach residents can utilize the Mills Act tax savings and how this information can be posted online.
I'm tennis communication from Councilwoman Jeri ships here. Councilmember So Long Island. Councilmember I'll ask them to the recommendation to request the city manager to provide an update on how Long Beach residents can utilize the MIL Zack tax savings and how this information can be posted online. Good. Councilmember Lipski. Wait till everybody is exiting exits. Thank you, Mr. Garcia. And I want to thank my co-sponsors on this. The Mills Act Historical Property Contract Program has been in existence for quite a few years, and it allows qualifying owners of historically designated property to receive a potential property reduction and to use that savings to help rehabilitate, restore and maintain their buildings. And as we know, in Long Beach, we have so many neighborhoods where we have properties that that are of historical significance that need to be rehabilitated. And that is very costly for property owners sometimes to do that without some kind of tax relief. The Mills Act is a state tax relief, but there's also federal tax relief available if the property is qualified at at the state level, the Mills Act is probably the single most important economic incentive program in California for the restoration and preservation of historic buildings by private property owners. It was enacted in 1972, and local governments go through a process by which they contract with the property owner to have a formalized agreement. The city of Long Beach had this in place for many years and stopped doing it in 2006, and I believe we probably have maybe only 30 homes. I may be incorrect. Mr. or Amy, I think you have the figure 30 homes right now that are eligible for the Mills Act incentive. One of the things in talking with city management that has come up is that, you know, and they certainly can speak for themselves, but in the briefing I had, some of the objections were is that it takes away property tax revenue from the city. It costs the city of Long Beach to have staff to audit the property owners to make certain they actually did do the rehabilitation to qualify for the tax incentive. Additionally, that city has not completed an audit and needs to do so on the existing owners that was standing. Some of these turn out there. That withstanding, I would like to go ahead, make a motion to request the city manager to go forth to indicate to the City Council how we can restore the Mills Act within the city of Long Beach. And I make that motion understanding that perhaps maybe city manager can comment on that, that there is concern about the auditing and the cost audit. And I would suggest that perhaps we have the city auditor take over that function for auditing since it's a concern to the city. So actually what I do, Mr. Garcia, is just wait and if we can maybe hear a staff report and then get the public input, then I can make a motion. Okay. That was the motion or no. Okay. So I'm just. Waiting and waiting to hear staff report because I see Mr. Westhead. Nodding up. And what we're going to do is we're going to hear staff report, we're going to come back to conservatorships for a possible motion to hear from the public. So, Mr. West, Amy Borek. Vice Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council, we do have the Mills Act, the ability to implement Mills acts. And as the Councilwoman Ships said, we did pause the program in 2006 because of some discrepancies related to the program. The issue that we have with the program is that under previous iterations, units within a single building, condo units within a single building could apply for Mills Act contracts. But if the entire building does not apply for the contract, it's very difficult for the city to understand what its historic improvements were made for that portion of the building. We have three multifamily buildings that are that have condo units in the Mills Act, but those buildings are not entirely in the Mills Act. One of the buildings is, for example, the Villa Riviera. We have a number of condo units in the Villa Riviera, but not the entire building, which makes it extremely difficult for us to assess what value those folks are making to the overall improvements of the building when the entire building itself is not not under Mills Act contracts. So we are looking to audit all of the existing contracts we've completed, all of the single family contracts. There are 31 single family contracts in the city. We've got about 200 condo contracts that we're in the process of going through right now and auditing all of those. We are trying to understand what improvements we're committed to by the property owners, whether those improvements were made, and whether they did in fact receive the appropriate tax credit if they received the tax credit. But it did not make the improvements. Clearly, there is an issue with that. And so that is what our audit is. It is less a financial audit and more of a physical inspection audit. So I would suspect that it would be appropriate for other types of staff to work on it as opposed to the city auditor. Additionally, once we complete the audits of all of the multifamily projects, we would then come up with a a series of changes that we would suggest to the ordinance, and then we would bring that ordinance back to the Cultural Heritage Commission, the Planning Commission and the City Council. If I can. Here. I'm a little puzzled, though. Why have we stopped issuing contracts in 2006? It's taken eight years for an audit to be done to see whether or not these are valid contracts. What spurred what spurred that audit? It's been very difficult for us to get access to all of these locations. We do need to get the property owners access permission to access their facilities, their condos. And so it's been a little challenging for us to do that. Well, my concern is the city of Los Angeles has a very detailed website and a very aggressive program on the Mills Act because they've reached out effectively to owners of property. They're encouraging them to contract with the city of Los Angeles because they understand how it helps specific neighborhoods. So I'm I'm I guess what I'm questioning is that can we not go for it? And I recall maybe Councilman Lowenthal can chime in on this. I think when we passed when we discussed the whole issue about implementing the cultural. Heritage. Historic preservation aspects of our planning. We talked about two things. We talked about reinstating the historic preservation officer position, and we also talked about reinstating the Mills Act. And I think I forget what year that was, but we didn't do it too long ago. So I'm just wondering why we can't embark back on the the Mills Act program, clean it up and make sure it operates the way it needs to, but at least go forward and offer it. Because we are talking about having homeowners and I understand about the condo situation. But, you know, certainly that's something that I think the city attorney could assist on in cleaning that language up. But I, I don't understand the reluctance to not just go ahead and reinstate the mills and program so that the homeowners can take advantage. Of. Under the current guidelines. I would not recommend to reinstate reinstatement of the program. And that's the purpose of of us doing this has always been to clean up the program and reinstated. When do you think the program will be cleaned up? Because, again, we cut this off in 2006. When we complete the audit and we understand what value has been derived from that. And then we'll be working on the the changes to the municipal code. And do we have a time frame on that? Probably this summer. Probably went probably this summer. This summer. All right. I'm going to hold off to hear the comic Councilor O'Donnell. I just actually I was just going to help council memberships. We kind of move this along and get get what she's looking for. Do you feel are you okay? No. No. I want to hear from the public about why we need to reinstate it. Okay, that's great. They're here. Good. Kotsenburg. DeLong, you know what? I'm going to wait to hear from the public, too. And then Travis suggestion for maybe how we can move this along a little sooner. And because we're a long can hear from the public first. Of course we can. Okay, great. I'm going to open this up for public comment. We'll come back to the city council. So please identify yourself for the record and come forward if you want to speak on the Mills Act item. Good evening, Vice Mayor Garcia and members of city council. I'm the public. I'm John Thomas. I've had the pleasure to represent Long Beach charities this evening and Bluff Heights Neighborhood Association, both our which have been very instrumental and watching and monitoring the progress since the Mills Act was postponed or sustained in 2006, just not to generate some of the most recent history. But in 2010, you might recall, we worked really, really hard with the council, the Cultural Heritage Commission, the Planning Commission and staff to adopt the city's first general plan element, the historic preservation element within HP. There were a number of recommendations, kind of taking a pinpoint on the city of Long Beach as history as it relates to cultural and historic resource preservation. We are also a certified local government because we have a commission, because we have an ordinance that would allow landmarking, facilities and organizing the Historic Preservation Office within the city's planning office. Both the Certificate of Local Government and Historic Preservation Element both recommend and in the HP actually says reinstate the Mills Act. Now we understand because we've been along for the process, that there were a number of perceived issues with the original function of how we were doing the Mills Act, most notably the multiple units. And that's just that's absolutely correct. I know that staff because Long Beach Heritage, since my involvement in the last six or seven years have been monitoring other cities City of Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Guard, Garden Grove, Fullerton and Orange and Pasadena. Looking at all those different cities and kind of developing a hybrid approach, and I, I heard a staff report to the Cultural Heritage Commission back in January where I think the staff has gotten to the point where working with the consultant, where the audit is underway, we're looking favored typically of reinstating a new Mills Act process that would do three things that I think are important, which monitor this leakage of property tax, which I think was one of the principal reasons. In 2006, the program was abandoned. In Los Angeles, they cap it. They cap how much property tax can be up for grabs, if you will, on an annual basis. Secondly, the audit program, it's a cost recovery or fee for service. If you charge an administrative fee to implement the Mills Act, that implementation fee ought to go to the audit process estimated for that that number of years, which is ten years. But at the end of the day we are very supportive of reinstating the Mills Act. It is a critical element and tool for historic preservation. In Long Beach we have over 140 landmarks. All those are coming due at some point in time owned by individuals or corporations where they're going to need the financial opportunities of the Mills Act. Thank you very. Much. Thank you, John. Mr. Garcia, can I ask him a question? Sure. Go ahead. You mentioned that there was, like you said, had a cap. And how much was it? I'm just curious. I believe it's 3 to $4 million. It's a just every year. And if we did something in Long Beach or Spring, a different size city, what do you think a reasonable cap might be? You know, Mr. Councilmember, I believe that it would be difficult to estimate at this point. I know that just in Bluff Heights alone, we have about 12 owners of homes that would like to get into the pool of the Mills Act. And because we've been without a Mills Act for some time, there's a lot of people that I think would stand in line to seek the initial opportunity. I do know that the Cultural Heritage Commission has agreed that looking at some sort of performance based objective where the initially the very most architecturally significant buildings might receive the opportunity for application first, and that might go hand in hand with assessing the need for the Mills Act for those properties, are they close to them or by neglect, are they, you know, in a in a tough spot in terms of maintenance? Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Barbara Sinclair. My address is on file. I am currently the acting president of the Wrigley Historic District, and we as a group and with the support of the Wrigley Association, would like to ask you to put your full support behind the reinstatement of the Mills Act in our historic district, as you probably all know, is pretty small. And Wrigley is is not an area of mansion style homes or large high dollar homes. We have very modest homes in our little district. And, you know, we're working people there and we're there because we understand the importance to the city of preserving our rich architectural buildings and homes. I myself live in a Cecil Schilling home. And it it kills me that there are so few of his buildings left in Long Beach. And in fact, the woman for whom this house was custom built in 1935, the school she was the principal of has since been torn down after a long fight, you know, with the Cultural Heritage Commission trying to protect it. The value of protecting these homes, I think, gives a unique boost to the issue of pride of place. I know where our area is, places in the middle of a a pretty rough neighborhood. And I like to think that the neighbors and our concern for what the place looks like and how much we care about all of Wrigley makes a difference to people who may just be passing through or may be tempted to throw something on the sidewalk. I think that the care of these places is critically important to Long Beach. I think it has a lot to do with Long Beaches character. I think we have become known as a city that does protect its historic places and its historic architecture in the downtown area and near the beaches. And I would like you to make every effort to make sure that that continues and that people who are willing to take care of these properties are given some help in doing so. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you very much. Honorable Vice Mayor, I have to say, Foster Garcia and City Council. My name is Karen Clements. My address, 1330 Knoxville Avenue, District three. And my comments are because I think I'm the one that's been here the longest with preservation in 1977. The ordinance was passed in November, and it was a hard fight to get the ordinance. I was on that first committee. We weren't a commission then. I was on the first committee and we set about trying to decide how in the world to address first things first. This survey was first, and after this survey, the most important item on our agenda were incentives. Because how in the world would you ask someone to to do the unthinkable, adding up money that they didn't even know they were going to have to add up because of stroke properties? You don't have an answer. How are they going to care? And and now that we have an ordinance, somebody cared, we thought. So that was a real tough fight. And it took. Us a very long time to get any incentives. And now we have the Mills Act, or we did have the Mills Act, which because of the. Fees that are involved with restoring a property, the C of A. And the. And the property. Fees, it's it almost evens out if they get a tax incentive. And I just want to encourage you to remember that you. Care about historic properties. You did write an ordinance. You also care about sustainability. We're a green city, and you also care about affordable housing. All of these things are accomplished with the Mills Act and it was a hard struggle to get it. Let's get it back. Thank you. Q Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is. Steffi Han's address. 2149 Kallon fifth District. I'm also a realtor with real Remax real estate specialists here in Long Beach. I specialize in historic properties myself, my clients, my friends. We all own these homes and we all spend a lot of money restoring and preserving them. Improving the property improves the street, the historic district, and ultimately the entire city, and also helps increase our property values and hopefully revenue. To the city. Los Angeles, Anaheim. And Orange have implemented this program to great. Success. And I really believe that the reenactment of this program will greatly further improve. The city of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. I'm Emily Stevens, and I'm a resident of Rose Park. And many here can speak better about the Mills Act than I can. However, I didn't want it to go by without mentioning to you that if you are looking at it from a financial aspect, the people that are incentivized to renovate their home move into these neighborhoods and take on that burden and do a good job doing it. They fill the job of the police, the fire department. There are so many aspects of that financially that the city will benefit from. So when you look at a cost of a program like this, I think that it would be very difficult to assess monetarily what the residents are doing when they renovate the home and they move into a neighborhood and try to renovate it to a historic capacity. But they are actually bringing alleviating services from other parts of the city. That was all I wanted to say. I do support this. I hope you do it real soon. Thank you. My name is Kathleen Irvine. I'm the president of Whitmore City Heritage Association. I live at 539 Daisy Avenue in the First District. And I know from personal experience with my 1905 bungalow. That. The amount. Of money that you would get from the Mills Act Four if it was reinstated, will not make up for the incredible amount of money that you will put into a historic home. That being said, I appreciate that it's being brought. Up and I encourage you to. Speed the process along because we all understand that it takes a lot of money. But far more important, I think, is that it stabilizes our neighborhoods. In the first District, there was at least 50% of our homes are owned by absentee landlords. It is a rental city. And I think that if there were. More incentive. For people to actually preserve these homes, instead of just slapping a coat of paint on and flipping it, that it would stabilize our neighborhoods, it would stabilize our city. And of course, everybody talked about the character and all of that. We all know that. But I really feel that it would also. Encourage more families to take on that burden of. Renovating a home so that we have more families moving in instead of this horrible flipping of homes of our old homes. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Kathleen. Next speaker, please. Good evening, all. Norman took my wife and I owned two properties on First Street, one on the 1600 block and one on the. 2700 block of First Street. 2003. 2006. My wife and I made two trips to this building here when the Mills Act was still available to us. And wasn't going anywhere. I know that today. And we're many, many years later, and I would really like to know exactly how many single family dwellings we're talking about. And unbelievably, condominiums. Within units that are not the. Whole building. Why can't you. Get access to those places to find out to do your audit? But I know that today my wife and I are spending our children and our grandchildren inheritance. I restore old cars. I'm a retired longshoreman. I restore old cars as a hobby. And my cars are beautiful and immaculate. The buildings that we owned in Long Beach are the same way beautiful and immaculate love. We spend a lot of money on them and if there's anything we want would get out of that is some kind of break and taxes. Only because I've made a commitment to my old cars and these old buildings. I live in San Pedro, but I love Long Beach. I grew up in San Pedro. I made my living in San Pedro and in Long Beach as a longshoreman. I'm spending that and my pension on the beautiful. Buildings that we own at Long Beach. So the sooner the better that we get the mills back in place. So the individuals like myself and my wife. Can maybe get a little bit of a tax. Break for us in the last part of our our years, that if I'm talking to you all personally tonight, I would ask that you immediately pressure the office to have this happen now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker. Hmm. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Christine. Velma. 901 East 37th Street in California Heights. My husband and I were the recipient of the Preservation Award from Long Beach Heritage last year, and we've offered our home for the great homes of Long Beach Tours and twice for the California Heights Neighborhood Association. We are very fortunate to own a home by renowned architect James, our friend. When we purchased the home in 2006, we were also able to purchase the original furnishings. The home had never been touched. We bought it from the grandchildren. It had one coat of paint on the interior and exterior. Everything in the home is original. It was a dream come true for us, but it's been a labor of love. So we purchased it in 2006, right before the markets turned. I immediately got in my application for the Mills Act and it was pretty promptly returned to us in the fall of that year. And it's been devastating for us. People that preserve architecture do it because they know that architecture is art and art is worth preserving. Art tells us who we are and it tells us where we've come from. But this is an expensive endeavor. We began by chipping away at the things that we needed to do restore the electrical, redo the plumbing, remove the fixtures, and have them re chromed, rebuilt, scraped, pushed apart everything delicately with a kid glove. The home looks much today as it did then. We have changed nothing about the home. But however, our restorations have slowed down tremendously and now we're kind of at the point where we're just trying to maintain the house. So for example, on December 23rd, our gas line went out and my husband on Christmas Eve dug up the line and that was our gift to each other. So people in this audience that know and understand the expense of maintaining a home. Know what it costs, but they know why we do it. We do it for love. We do it for passion, but we really do it for the future. So please, as we think about Long Beach going forward, please consider supporting people that support this cause for Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker. Hi. My name is Sasha Witty. I live at three, two, one, four East Second Street. I am the current president of the Bluff Park Historic District Neighborhood Association and have been for the last few years. This is one of the items we get questioned about the most frequently. When is the Mills Act going to be reenacted? Why hasn't it been reenacted? My partner and I live in a 1913 home. It's certainly a labor of love. We demoed out upgrade to from 1913 to 1960 standards to current electrical and plumbing a few years ago. Found out our second floor was collapsing into the first floor. And needless to say, our kitchen is put off long term until we can kind of recover those costs. So in my personal life, I also work as interior designer, primarily residential, and I would say I work on a lot of historic properties and I work on a lot of contemporary properties. There's no comparison in the cost to upkeep, maintain and bring up to date a historic home in comparison to newer construction. And I would just say I'm so glad this is before the council, and certainly it would make a big difference towards promoting and preserving these wonderful historic structures that make such a difference in our historic neighborhoods of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I, Tonya is the longest seven district resident address on file. I just want to thank you for bringing this councilmember, for bringing this to the agenda. I think ever since people have heard about this, that it may possibly be coming back, there's been a lot of excitement in the community. The sixth and seventh District is not downtown. We're not the fanciest neighborhoods. But I'll tell you that any hope to. Be able to save the. Homes that we see as beautiful I think is a plus. I hear loud and clear from staff that it is difficult, extremely difficult to do from their perspective. But anything worth doing is difficult. And I've heard loud and clear from the community that they want this and that they wait long enough. Anything that you see when you drive down the streets, especially in the beautiful seventh District, Councilmember Johnson is is is an asset to the entire city. And when we get recognized for historic homes and buildings as a city, it brings not only recognition to us, but, quite frankly, visitors and money. So I think in the long run, we win. I hope that this passes. I hope that we get this done quickly and that we don't wait another eight years. Everyone wants this and we have enough resources in the community. A lot of the speakers that you heard tonight to be able to help you figure those things out, the the the barriers, the the the blockades or whatever you want, the excuses. But there's so many people here that want to I think we have the brain trust here to get it done. So thank you. Thank you so much. Speaker Wendy Horn 3214. East Second Street. Third District. I'm speaking on behalf of Long Beach Heritage and we emphatically support the reinstatement of the Mills Act. We are all about the passionate identification, restoration, protection and preservation of historic properties, iconic and within the historic districts. So anything that can be done to expedite that, we would support strongly. We feel that's a minuscule economic impact compared to the vast gains that you'd have in growing your cultural artifacts. Then as the co-owner with Sasha Whitney of our home at three, two, one four East Second Street in the Bluff Park Historic District. It was the. City council that approved my ability to move that home from across the Long Beach Art Museum in 1989. And at that time, they were extremely supportive, as I assure you all are, of historic preservation in historic districts. And I worked very closely for two years with then historic preservation officer Ruthanne Lear in the moving and restoration of that home. 23 years later, my that old, we still have quite a bit of work to do and we have also gotten some awards and recognized. And it's a wonderful property. We're enthused, we're excited. We love living in a historic district and everything it represents in this city, and we are excited to hope that the city would reinstate that. I too had applied and was told at the time. I think there was about 40 people on the. Waiting list and they weren't even accepting. Any more applications many years ago. So we definitely are supportive and would encourage anything that you could do would be a great incentive to us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And our final speaker. This is done. Let's move ahead. Let's advance. Look at linger in the past with old buildings that are dilapidated and if they were updated would still. Look old fashioned. Because renovation means doing the new. But building again means making it even more new, maybe functional. I recognized one building in particular the brick rubble on Ocean Boulevard and Alamitos that has some historical value that I haven't been able to ascertain. Architecturally, it's really unique. But it is really one of the best offerings. The historical sites have to really offer something Lincoln preserved. Now, the ranch, the ranch that we have with tours, tours and that sort of thing, that's kind of nice. And I think the art museum is a nice building, too. But what you haven't seen are the rest of the buildings. And interestingly enough, not one picture has been shown. These buildings that are going to be renovated, changed, changed to a new will generate more revenue. The bill. Let's bill. Let's not sustain the old. It just doesn't look good. Architecture advances its modern. Let's not Long Beach be an old fashioned community. Let's advance and certainly some buildings. I would I would surmise most of the buildings are just not beautiful. And by making it trying to make the more beautiful, you discover the fact that it can be rebuilt. Probably a lot cheaper. And if not cheaper, more beautifully. Thank you. We have one more speaker. Please come forward to the last speaker. The one to get behind the. I just wanted to get the previous speakers name if it was on file yet. Mr. Dunn. Career? Dunn. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. We're going to go and take it behind the rail over here. And we're gonna start with Councilmember Lowenthal. I want to thank all the speakers that came forward, especially those that have been working on historic preservation for quite a long time, from the neighborhoods and and those who served on the Cultural Heritage Commission, i. The questions I had, I think have been answered. And then council memberships get asked about what year the element was. The historic element was passed, and that was 2010. And I think that had been excuse me answered as well. So I wanted to thank Council membership scheme for bringing attention back to this council. On this item. I first became aware of the Mills Act when I lived in a loft in the Kress Lofts, which at the time we had not qualified for the Mills Act yet. But certainly that building being one of the newer buildings, having come back online through adaptive reuse, we were looking forward to that and appreciated how oversubscribed the program was that it was oversubscribed because I believe we have well-intentioned homeowners that would like to preserve as much as they can of their historic homes. From there, I moved to another historic neighborhood, Rose Park, and the home is a 1917 home. So it is a labor of love. It's very difficult, but certainly worth doing. And so I want to thank you council memberships for bringing this council back in. Focus on the issue. It has been quite a while since we've discussed the Mills Act, as you mentioned earlier, but the topic remains very popular in the second district. And as we heard from Councilmember Yarrawonga, it's popular all throughout, regardless of which district we live in. But if we just look at the intent really of what we want as a city, what residents want, I think we do want the same things. We live in communities like this because of its history. And one of the speakers earlier indicated what history really meant to us. And preserving that, it tells us where we came from and it informs us really where we're going. And so I appreciate that if if my memory serves me, we approved the element in 2010, which I think Amy's confirmed. And at that time we committed to reestablishing the Mills Act program after evaluating contracts and implementation from the last program. And I think if we look right at language from the element, it says the city will reestablish the Mills Act program for owners of designated historic properties and will implement a program to inspect and monitor existing mills, act properties and to review new applications to ensure that proposed projects meet the Secretary of Interior Standard for Rehabilitation. So I can appreciate some of the original concerns associated with that loss of revenue to the city, especially given the last decade of budget cuts and positions eliminated in the city serving on the Budget Oversight Committee. That point is not lost on me, and I recognize that many of council's directives here are heaved upon the shoulders of development services with an expedited timeline. I, for one, am guilty of that. And you can you can smile, Miss Burdick, because, you know I am guilty of that. We do put that on you and we everything needs to be yesterday. But I'm concerned that that we and our consultant are still evaluating properties at this point. I had hoped to see recommendations for a new program by now. I don't know the details of what goes on in those evaluations, but it's been a long time properly performed. Improvements provide a return on our investment in the form of higher property values, which in turn leads to increased revenue coming back to the city. I'll just talk about Rose Park. Rose Park today is not what it was 11 years ago when we moved into it because of the work that homeowners have put into it, with or without the Mills Act and it has raised property values, I can assure you, just from my own personal example, it really has what my neighbors have done through blood, sweat and tears and hard work has assisted the entire neighborhood. So we know that to be true. So in that regard, I think we will make up those lost revenues through increased property values, perhaps changing of hands of these properties, although many of us, you know, would like to stay forever in our homes, it's a reality. And so in that regard, I think that's where we make up this loss, this anticipated loss. And so I'm not insensitive to it, but I do know we will make it up if we do support neighborhoods in bringing these properties up and raising the entire area's property value. In some, the mills act as a useful tool for preserving our city's heritage and a return on our collective investment. I firmly believe this. And so, Councilmember Lipski, I'm happy to support a motion that you put forward. I'm delighted that you asked me to coauthor this with you and. Honored to do so. But I will take your lead. I would like to see us move forward in a direction where we can make good on the original intent of our 2010 historic preservation element. Thank you, Counselor DeLong. Thank you. You know, I have a few questions. First, Ms.. Broder, could you just take a minute and describe how we've used the Mills Act in the past to just tell us what the benefit is to the residents, perhaps what the cost has been to the city. Just give us a quick overview of the program when it was enacted. I don't have the financial numbers in front of me of the of the potential tax losses that the city has has incurred because of contracts with the Mills Act. It is a clearly a benefit to a property owner of a home that does require significant improvements. They do receive a discount and state and federal taxes for the work that they put into their property. It is clearly not a 100% rebate and the property owner does get does bear a significant burden of those improvements. But it is meant as as it was stated several times tonight to incent property owners to maintain their properties or to restore properties that have fallen into disrepair. We do also have folks who purchase properties in historic districts, and they know of the possibility of a mills act and they try to forestall improvements until they know that they can get some relief from their property taxes as part of a Mills Act contract. We do believe that there is a value in reinstating the contract, the contracts. What we do need to do, though, however, is modify the ground rules under the contracts to deal with some of the the issues that we've had with the program in the past. And that's what we're in the process of doing. The City of Los Angeles does have an annual cap. There are other cities that only allow a certain number of applications that are per year. So it's not necessarily a dollar amount, but it is a number of applications that they're willing to accept in a year . So we're looking at different models to see which one would work for Long Beach. Once we do that, we do have to calculate what the potential financial impact is. But again, as as Councilwoman Lowenthal said, it is very likely that a lot of that impact could be made up in increased property values over time. Okay. So, for example, if I if I bought a home for $500,000 and I put $200,000 into it, what would be the financial benefit to me and what would be the impact on the city? It's based on your property taxes, not the value of the improvements that you put into it. So let's assume that the value of the property went up to $200,000 for my additional investment. The value of their property went up. Bought it for 500,000 that my tax base, I bought 200 into it, which added $200,000 for the value. So now you have an assessed value of 700,000. Yes. Okay. So you're paying taxes on $700,000. You get a portion of that rebated. I don't know, portion. Of the incremental 200,000 in value. If you've made $200,000, yes, you get a portion of the value of that. So a portion of $200,000. Yes. I apologize. It's based on the 700,000, the total assessed value of the property. Okay. So is it possible that I would pay less taxes for this home that was worth 700,000 than I paid property taxes when it was only worth 500. I can't answer that. Right here, right now. Okay. Can we just about how did the program work before? Was it first come, first serve? Do we have any caps, any limits? How did we determine that? A property qualified for a mills act? It was first come, first serve. You had to be either a in a historic district or a designated landmark. And those contracts were entered into based on some some very general bullet points of what the property owner was going to do in terms of improvements for those homes, for example, a home. And then the property owner would make the improvements and be able to take a credit on the property taxes. And what was the and how is the amount of that credit calculated? I don't have that that information in front of me. I'm sorry. And how many homes are currently covered today under the Mills Act in Long Beach? Individual homes, we have about 31 individual homes and we have almost 200 multiplex condo units that are also covered by the program. And what are your concerns regarding the multiplex units? I noticed in your opening remarks you think they shouldn't be covered or is it the way we're covering them today? Doesn't make sense. The reinstatement of the program. The way we're covering them today does not make sense. Because. If you have a six plex condo building and three of the two of the property owners do not participate in the Mills Act, but four of them do, and the entire six owners agree to improvements to the building. It's very difficult to determine the value of the credit that should be derived for each of the individual property owners. If some of them did not, you know, did not have a Mills Act contract. If someone restores a window in their unit or there's a lobby that gets restored and that's covered under common area maintenance charges or an ATO, it's very difficult to ascertain the level of the improvements that were made that should have been historic in nature. That should have been just your condo reserve, that should have been applied to the individual property owners. So your recommendation being a multi-unit property that all the units need to be applying for the Mills Act? All the units need to apply, but the applicant would be the away and not the individual properties. So theoretically, the, the the majority of the of the improvements that would be derived from a Mills Act contract are within the common area are or are for the benefit of the entire building like reroofing a historic roof, you know , dealing with foundations repointing the brick facade that benefits the entire building as opposed to just individual units. And is that more in line with how other cities that have viable programs are working? Yes. Okay. Well, I. Guess what I'd like to see is, you know, sometimes I think we look for the perfect answer and it takes us forever to get there, if at all. I guess what I'd like to see us do is come up with some kind of a pilot program with the understanding that may not be the perfect program and put some appropriate caps and limits on it so it doesn't get out of control. And then based on the experiences with with getting that program in place, then we can grow it, we can evolve and we can modify it over time. Now, I'm sure the Council can come up with something along those lines, but the other alternative is to request staff to come back in 30 days or some timeframe with some recommendations for putting a pilot program together for the Mills Act. Shift your thoughts on that. But I guess from a staff perspective first, I'm sure some other folks here that would like to see something done. I guess, Amy, what is your thoughts on that? I don't really see the need for a pilot program. I think the answer is to just continue to move into the implementation of making revisions to the ordinance. How quickly can you do it? As I said to Councilwoman Chayefsky, I think we should be complete with all of our work by summer. Yeah, I guess for me or other council members, I have to say, I think that's too long. I don't see why we need all that work to be done in order to put a program in place. But what if some other members but if we can't do it faster than I think we should put something in place immediately. They can continue to move on the council membership scheme. Thank you, Mr. DeLong. And if I can, for the the public explained about the calculation of the property tax, it is actually a very convoluted property tax situation about what the benefit is. For instance, the city of Berkeley gives the example on a condo with the assessed value of 250,000 and current taxes at 3125. Once the calculation is made of the historic property risk component, what they call the capitalization rate and the property tax component. This person now is, instead of paying 3125 in property taxes, is paying 1135 for a savings of 1990 dollars. In Berkeley and other places, as a ten year contract is ours, a ten year contract situation. It's a rolling ten year contract. As a ten year contract. And so at any time both either the city of the property owner can cancel it. And there's also a 12.5%, I think, penalty if in fact the property owner does not continue to do what they're doing. So I'd like to make the motion based upon the discussion. Certainly the city of Los Angeles, you might know, and I think Ms.. Bardach mentioned this, they have just reassessed their Mills Act program. They have come up with some new conditions. They've put a cap and a timeline on when people can make applications. They've also increased the application fee. I don't know what our application fee is. I know Mr. West had expressed some concern about not being able to fund staff to. Follow this program. But I do know the city of L.A. does charge 250 for single family house and I think 1450 for a multiple dwelling unit. So perhaps we could look at that as well. So on that, I'd like to make the motion to direct the city manager to report to the council in 30 days how the city, how we are going to reinstate the Meals Act savings program in the city of Long Beach. The second second there's been a motion and a second. Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And I'm glad you make the motion before my comments, because I think most of my questions have been asked. You guys asked them some very good questions. I was sitting here actually reviewing the City of Los Angeles Store Preservation Program and their Meals Act. I believe it was stated earlier that they set aside up to $3 million a year and I rent a million a year. And then there are caps on on the assessed values of the the homes that participate in the properties that participate in the program. And so I'd like to see something like that included in anything that comes back as well. So I'm going to support the motion I signed on. I think this is great for our neighborhoods and any the benefits are going to far outweigh the costs or liabilities to our property tax revenues here. The city of Long Beach. So I'm happy to support. Thank you, Councilman O'Donnell. Yeah, I think I think it's all been said. I was just curious as to the cost of the program. And I think you when you come back, there would be some recommendation included. Is that correct? You mean in terms of implementation? Yes, sir. So we would if we were to do a cap, we would then try to do a calculation to determine what the fiscal impact would be on property tax revenue for the city. Right. And with a recommendation of some potentially. Yes, I would absolutely recommend a potential annual cap. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor DeLong. Just one more question on if the city attorney or maybe Mr. Thomas, but does anybody know how that calculation is done on the on the income tax savings was done on the net increase or maybe has a home covered by property tax savings? You know, Charlie John, do you know by any chance it's okay? Mr. Don Berkeley actually has it up online and they talk about it as if it's a income property. They do recalculate gross income, less expenses, net income, capitalization rate. And did it say how about on a personal note? Because I think it's probably more work. On a on a personal property. Yeah. Yeah. No, it does it does have it's it says the property valuation is determined by the revenue and tax code. But I guess whether or not, you know, you get a benefit where your rates are actually lower than what your initial value because that wouldn't make any sense to me. So it seem to me that you would just get a credit toward your incremental value. Do you know. I believe that it was stated correctly that it's a total assessed value as it's reassessed on the home or the income property or multiple residential property. Generally speaking, Councilmember DeLong, it's roughly 50 to 63%. We've we've studied this over the last several years, depending on the calculation methodology and the unique tax code, it's generally in that range . I think Councilman Ski's testament to about 1900 dollars out of. 30,000 or something. He's probably right in that 63, 65% of. 60, 65% savings. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to make just some brief comments. I think this is great. I want to commend Councilmember Sheepskin, but also consumer Lowenthal and Austin, who brought this forward. I remember before joining the council even I also live in a historic building and there was a lot of discussion about the Mills Act and the people in the. Building, I. Believe, lived there because we love it's its historical nature. It's an incredibly gorgeous place to live in the temple lofts here in downtown Long Beach. One of the I believe to be one of the best landmarks we have in the city. And there's a lot of I think there's a lot of opportunity for this to be something. There's an opportunity for us to help a lot of people. But more importantly, a lot of good a lot of these homes and buildings restored back to their glory days. So this is a great thing. I have one question I'm assuming that is broadcast in your review of of where we're at and what you're bringing back. You're going through a best practices review of what L.A. is doing, and everyone else is basically correct. Yes, sir, that's correct. Okay. And conservatorships cases, Anaheim. Right. Okay, great. Well, then we have a motion on the floor. There's no other community, no other council comment will take a vote. I mean. Yes, Mr.. Her motion carries eight votes. Yes. Great. And we'll go ahead and take the next item. Item 11 is communication with the office Councilwoman Jeri Ships and council member Gary DeLong with a request that the city attorney provide a review of the city of Costa mesa, civic, civic openness in negotiations, ordinance and the feasibility of a similar ordinance being adopted in the city by the Long Beach City Council.