Fort Street Mall bill proceeds
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
The effort to establish a business improvement district at Fort Street Mall moved forward yesterday after the City Council held a public hearing on the issue with no one speaking against the plan.
Advertiser library photo
The bill, which is supported by every landowner at Fort Street Mall, would allow the landowners to essentially tax themselves and create a business improvement district similar to the one started last year in Waikiki.
Fort Street Mall, a popular hangout for Hawai'i Pacific University students, may see more improvements if a City Council bill becomes law.
Earlier this year the city launched an effort to clean up the mall by improving landscaping and having police enforce the closure of the mall at night, chasing out homeless people that had been living and sleeping there.
The improvement association would provide money to further clean and beautify the mall while providing increased security in hopes of drawing more customers. If the bill ultimately becomes law, the group expects to raise and spend $500,000 on improvements in the first year.
The bill now returns to the Parks and Public Safety Committee Sept. 11 and for a third and final reading before the full council on Sept. 25. If passed by the council, the bill would go to Mayor Jeremy Harris for his signature.
Fort Street Mall merchants hope to form a nonprofit corporation this fall to manage the district and collect money to pay for landscaping, security and maintenance improvements.
"This bill was modeled after the ordinance that created the Waikiki Business Improvement District, so having the template to follow obviously makes it easier for us," said Lori Lum, spokeswoman for the improvement group. "We are actually starting already to form the association so that we can implement the district."
The plan calls for businesses within the district to be assessed a fee to supplement city services such as security and maintenance. The owners would pay a fee amounting to $1.63 per $1,000 of assessed value as set by the city's real property tax appraisals.
Parks and Public Safety Committee chairman Jon Yoshimura, who introduced the bill, said the public hearing was to give landowners and people affected by the improvement district an opportunity to voice their opposition, but no one spoke against the project and no written protests were filed with the city clerk's office.
The nonprofit Waikiki Business Improvement District Association was formed to run Hawai'i's first such improvement district modeled on several similar efforts on the Mainland. The district stretches the length of the Kuhio-Kalakaua corridor and represents 1,600 Waikiki hoteliers, retailers and landowners.
"The Waikiki business improvement district has made Waikiki cleaner and safer," Lum said. "We believe that the creation of the Fort Street Mall business improvement district will also enhance and improve the downtown area for everyone."
Lum said after previously hearing some concerns that the improvement district would alienate clients of the many social service agencies in the area, the merchants asked those providers to join a committee to set up and manage the association and they have agreed.
The City Council also did some housekeeping by passing several measures related to the improvement district. The council voted to move the mall from the jurisdiction of the city Parks Department, remove the mall from the city's master plan as part of a designated bicycle route, allow the district association to bill itself for services rather than going through the city, allow the merchants to have limited access to the mall for maintenance vehicles and designate that the mall is not a public park.
"My hope is that in less than a couple months we will get this business improvement district up and running," Yoshimura said.
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.
