- April 25, 2024
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Watch out for what some people wish for. The unintended consequences can create regrets.
This is the movement to include the Rosemary District, north of downtown Sarasota, in the Downtown Improvement District, a special taxing district.
To be sure, it’s encouraging and a cause to cheer to see tangible, not proposed, development gaining momentum in the long-struggling Rosemary District. Three new apartment complexes are on their way to fruition, the results of which will spur more commercial redevelopment and development along Central Avenue and the adjoining streets. It’s nice to see that area finally starting to blossom.
This spurt of activity in turn has heightened discussions about expanding the two-mill-a-year taxing district that currently encompasses the western edge of the downtown core (see map). A few members of the Downtown Improvement District board have requested the City Commission form a task force to determine whether there is support for expanding the district across Fruitville Road to the Rosemary District.
The thinking makes sense on the surface. The funds from that two-mill tax currently are used to enhance the district’s appearance and for marketing the businesses in the DID. Proponents of expanding the district see the same results — except on a larger scale. The two-mill tax funds from the Rosemary District’s properties would be pooled with those from the existing district, and the governing board likely would be expanded to give the Rosemary District property owners a voice on the DID.
It sounds appealing — more property owners contributing, more funds for improvements.
But surely, if you think this through, you can foresee the inevitable conflicts, fights and strife.
Say the taxing district is expanded. But to spur more and quicker redevelopment and physical enhancements, imagine Rosemary District property owners clamoring for more funds than they paid in taxes to be invested in their portion of the district than in the original downtown district. We can already hear longtime downtown business owner Ron Soto stridently voicing his displeasure.
Or imagine vice versa — the original district expending more funds in that section than in the Rosemary District.
Or how about marketing? You can envision the complaining. “How come the website features more videos and photos of Main Street than the Rosemary District?” “Why is Central Avenue featured on the cover of the brochure and not Main Street?”
All of the above is the problem with taxation. Inevitably, the money is redistributed inequitably. This is especially so the larger the taxing district becomes. Take St. Armands Circle, where business and property owners are paying among the highest property taxes in the city. And yet they don’t receive the level of services commensurate with what they pay. When you talk to St. Armands Circle business owners, they complain how the city is lax in its garbage collection. All that money paid in, but much of it expended elsewhere.
This would be the likely outcome of an expanded Downtown Improvement District — property owners inevitably dissatisfied for being slighted.
Rather than expand the Downtown Improvement District, create a separate Rosemary Improvement District. Here’s why: homogeneity.
That is why the St. Armands Business Improvement District has worked so well for a decade. That’s why the Downtown Improvement District is working. And why the six community development districts in Lakewood Ranch function well. Each one consists of geographically tight, homogenous groups, where taxpayers’ interests are aligned.
If you combine the Downtown Improvement District property owners with those across Fruitville Road in the Rosemary District, you’re combining two areas at different stages in their life cycles and with noticeably different needs.
A single taxing district for these areas would be a formula for strife.
It’s an inviolable tenet of environmentalism that the government must spend millions upon millions of dollars every year gobbling up as much land as possible to prohibit the expansion of human habitation.
And it’s such an easy sale. To wit: last November’s Amendment 1, requiring 33% of Florida’s annual documentary-stamp taxes to be used for land acquisition. Seventy-five percent of Floridians who voted in the general election voted for the amendment.
In Sarasota County, nearly 68% of voters approved in 1999 the county taxing up to 0.25 mills annually for land acquisition for 30 years.
We have always maintained the concept of preserving nature is such a feel-good proposition that the masses seldom think through the economic, environmental and social consequences (i.e. they’re not all good). But that’s an argument for another day.
At issue today is an idea the Sarasota County Commission may consider for next year’s budget: reducing the land-acquisition millage rate so the county can raise the general-fund millage rate, with the net result being no increase in the overall county millage rate.
The thinking is the county has $17 million sitting in a land-acquisition pot. What’s more, the county doesn’t have a “must-buy” list of potential land acquisitions with an urgent deadline. And … according to the 1999 vote, the county is not required to levy 0.25 mills every year; it’s required to levy up to 0.25 mills, which means the amount can be reduced. The writers of that county amendment obviously, intentionally and wisely included flexibility — foreseeing there may be times when the full millage rate isn’t needed.
When voters and elected officials mandate dedicated trust funds, they create a costly disservice to themselves: They inevitably misallocate resources, which inevitably leads to higher, more wasteful taxation.
Lowering the land-buying millage rate to be able to allocate general funds for more pressing needs would be good governance.
The Downtown Improvement District is a dependent special district created to improve the downtown core of the city of Sarasota.
BOUNDARIES
Generally bounded on the north by Second Street, on the east by Goodrich Avenue and Pine Place, on the south by Ringling Boulevard, on the southwest by Palm Avenue or the properties on the southwest side of Palm Avenue, and on the west by Cocoanut Avenue, although two parcels on the west side of Cocoanut Avenue at Second Street are included within the boundaries of the District.
FINANCING
A city property tax of up to two mills on properties within the district.
GOVERNANCE
A Board of Directors is comprised of five members appointed by the City Commission. Each member of the Board shall be a non-residential property owner subject to ad-valorem taxation within the District.
GOALS
1) Contract with the city to obtain a higher level of service for trash collection, removing litter and graffiti, washing sidewalks, trimming trees and planting flowers.
2) Contract with the city to improve the downtown ambiance with pedestrian scale lighting, street furniture and continuous streetscape reinvestment as well as the care of the trees and flowers.
3) Envision and develop a strategic plan with goals and specific objectives as well as timelines for completion.
4) Make recommendations to the City Commission regarding management of private activity in public spaces, such as sidewalk vending, street furniture and performances and assist with monitoring code compliance.
5) Make recommendations to the City Commission regarding the public parking system and transient activity within the district.
6) Recruit and retain businesses by offering financial incentives for new and expanding businesses, conducting market research and providing data reports, retail/office space lease and property sales marketing information.
7) Welcome downtown consumers with high visibility uniformed street guides and staff sidewalk hospitality kiosks.
8) Market the downtown by producing festivals and events, maps, newsletters coordinating sales promotions, image enhancement and advertising campaigns.
Source: Downtown Improvement District
