Starting next year, Escondido will start charging property owners a fee for leaving their commercial buildings vacant.
It's an attempt by the city to curb Escondido's growing number of vacant storefronts.
The City Council approved the ordinance on Oct. 23. According to city staff, Escondido is the first city in the county to impose such a fee.
Owners of abandoned commercial buildings or vacant lots will have to pay $4,474 annually, which includes a registration fee of $1,042 and a monitoring fee of $3,432 that is due upfront.
The city began working on the ordinance two years ago when it noticed an uptick in business closures — especially on Grand Avenue.
Escondido Mayor Dane White said it's part of the city’s plan to revitalize the downtown area.
"We have a lot of the larger properties that have been vacant, some for decades," he said. "And what happens is some of these people are out of town. They don’t really have any interest in making Escondido better and making our downtown better."
Up and down Grand Avenue in downtown Escondido, between vibrant shops, cafés and restaurants, are empty storefronts. They are eyesores debris, with broken glass and some with makeshift homeless shelters in the doorway.
“Some of these owners just really don’t seem to care about their property at all,” said Greer Bohan, owner of Ginger Road Wellness & Spa.
She's been at the same location at the corner of Grand Avenue and North Kalmia Street for 10 years, and she's seen some storefronts sitting empty just as long.
“We need a vibrant downtown here in Escondido for our businesses and for our community," Bohan said. "And just having places empty for no reason is not conducive to business at all.”
Come the new year, owners of abandoned buildings will also need to display their contact information or their representatives' information on the property. They will also need to describe how they would secure the property from break-ins and any future plans for the building.
If those plans change, they must also update the city.
White said the ordinance isn't meant to be punitive, but to hold property owners accountable for letting their property become a nuisance and draining city resources.
"On the flip side, it's also a useful tool for our economic development team," he said. "When businesses are seeking to come — new businesses come to Escondido, our economic development team will have a tool now to identify where these people can go and look at properties, and hopefully move into Escondido."
White said that property owners who are actively trying to fill vacancies can apply for a refund once they rent out the place.
