City Council - Regular Meeting

So this is the discussion topics that I mentioned at the start of the presentation. So there are not always formal work plan items here and some of these may even fall perhaps outside of the purview of what EDC can work or focus on. So I'd like to start with the digital marketing feedback. So feedback from business owners this year on the holiday advertising campaign was strongly positive and our metrics backed up their feedback. The committee's view is that continued investment in digital marketing has measurable ROI and should be sustained. We also encourage the city to lean into trends and more modern social media platforms and short form video. That's where a lot of Bay Area audiences are consuming content and particularly younger consumers. So I think we should make sure that we continue to invest there and expand. Next up is real estate challenges. This is perhaps the most kind of structurally difficult issue on this list. It's one that the committee has kind of wrestled with all year. Mom and pop retail model is under enormous pressure everywhere. The U.S., California, Pacifica. Business sales and prices have a practical ceiling because small retail businesses can only generate so much revenue, but landlord costs and rents continue to rise, and so there's a very real squeeze that happens. Beyond the economics, we're seeing many properties that are simply not being maintained, and we think the city should research whether a blight ordinance is applicable here and whether there are funding sources, potentially state or federal, for facade improvement programs. These tools exist in other cities and they can work well. Similarly, there's the issue of vacant properties that have sat underutilized for many years, in some cases, and that's lost economic potential. The city should look at vacancy measures and creative approaches to activating those spaces, even temporarily. The final issue we've talked about and discussed at length is the cost of building out a business. Many new tenants want to move into commercial spaces in the city, but they often can't afford permitting and improvement costs. So though it may seem small, the ability to streamline permitting and offer permit fee reductions for commercial tenants could reduce a real barrier to businesses getting opened in the city. Our belief is it would represent perhaps a modest budget loss for the city. Downtown Pacifica placemaking. So Sharpark has great potential as a walkable, vibrant district, and placemaking initiatives are a proven way to unlock that. We want to continue engaging with community partners and property owners and local businesses. to find ways to invest in making the downtown feel more exciting and vibrant and like a downtown. We'd also suggest pursuing partnerships with local clubs such as Rotary Club to help renovate or improve areas of the downtown such as the pier restroom. These are unglorious tasks but people do volunteer to help or would be willing to volunteer to help, and they can make a very meaningful difference in the visitor experience within Pacifica. Next is the signage and public infrastructure. So just reiterating that there's a broader set of needs within the city for signage and public infrastructure. So the style guide recommendation I mentioned earlier fits here. We really want to find a way to expand wayfinding to all districts throughout Pacifica and more corridors and entryways into the city. And then finally, we believe that the CIP could be utilized here to give a higher priority to some smaller infrastructure improvements such as introducing new better bathrooms or improving existing bathrooms, just benches, communal spaces, trash cans, et cetera. These can be done relatively cheaply compared to other CIP initiatives and have fairly outsized impacts on business districts. So we'd like to raise that as something to consider. And finally, the PTMD collaboration and visitpacifica.com So that website, visitpiscicaba.com, is an awesome asset to the city. It's well-designed, has good reach, and we think there is an opportunity to make it even more useful by introducing kind of city guides and help direct people to various local businesses and connecting the website to QR codes throughout the city, as I mentioned, potentially trailhead signage or other places meeting visitors where they where they are. So EDC would love to work closely with PTMD to help get there. Next slide. So I kind of went over this, but I want to just highlight because there was a lot of work put in this past year to systematically track vacancies across commercial properties within Pacifica's business districts, something that was not being done in a coordinated way prior to EDC's efforts and Paige's efforts specifically. Yeah, long-term vacancies are not only an eyesore. They suppress foot traffic and undermine other neighborhood businesses, as well as...