Fashion District BID Challenged by Santee Group
The future of how the Los Angeles Fashion District is managed is up in the air as a group of Santee Alley property owners has submitted a petition to the city to form a smaller Business Improvement District (BID) to manage security, cleaning and marketing services for the district’s apparelindustry tenants.
Led by Fisch Properties’ Len Fisch, who owns several properties in the Santee Alley shopping district, the proposed Apparel District BID has garnered the support of property owners who represent about 30 percent of land in the area bordered by Ninth, 15th, Santee and Main streets. Typically, state law requires support from landowners who have more than 50 percent of the district, but because the area lies in a federal enterprise zone, it needs only 30 percent, according to the city charter.
That poses a scenario that has Fisch’s group challenging the existing Fashion District BID, which already has more than 50 percent representation. But there can only be one BID per district per five-year contract, according to state law, so the burden now is on city hall. The next step would have the city council and city clerk certify the petition and put it to a district-wide vote. But with two proposals on the table, Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose 9th District covers much of the area in question, is considering bringing in a mediator if the two groups cannot work out a solution with their own appointed consultants.
The Apparel District BID has challenged the Fashion District BID on a number of governance issues, such as holding more open-board elections and giving property owners more control over the BID’s $3 million annual budget. The group said the existing BID should have channeled $1 million of a recent budget surplus back to the property owners but the money was used in part to hire a lobbying group to help run the renewal campaign.
Kent Smith, Fashion District executive director, said a lot of those differences have already been worked out, from the channeling of windfalls to the lowering of assessments for property owners. He said board elections are also more democratic now.
“For years, we’d send out letters asking for volunteers to be on the board but would only get four or five responses, but only recently we’ve received more volunteers, so the board made the decision of who would be on the board,” Smith explained. “But now we’ve changed it to allowing the property owners to elect board members, and we’ve also set term limits.”
Both parties said they are confident they will prevail in getting their BIDs approved.
“The city could approve or reject ours, or maybe we can work something out,” said Steve Afriat, a consultant for the Apparel District BID. “But right now, it’s in due diligence with the city clerk.” —Robert McAllister
