In a bid to protect and support small businesses, the Malibu City Council directs staff to study a possible limit on national chain and other stores geared toward tourists. It also green lights a “shop local” campaign.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
Despite overwhelming opposition from the business community, the city council Monday night directed staff to study a rule that would limit certain types of stores in Malibu.
The item was discussed during a meeting that was packed by local and business community members and lasted until after midnight.
Monday’s council action was the latest in a process begun in May, when the council voted to gather public input on ways to protect and support local independent businesses amid community outcry following the threatened eviction of Trancas Canyon Nursery in April, and amid the ever-increasing expulsion of small, locally owned businesses.
City staff submitted a wide range of potential strategies for the council to consider to aid independent businesses in town, including placing limits on the number of chain stores or types of shops such as high-end clothing stores. More than 20 developers, shopping center owners and members of the Malibu Chamber of Commerce voiced opposition to any rule that would place a numerical limit on certain stores, arguing that in a down economy Malibu needed all the tenants it could get.
“Malibu retail is struggling like all of America,” Michael Koss, co-owner of the Malibu Country Mart shopping center, said. “There is vacancy in all of the Malibu retail centers. Heavy-handed governmental interference would be very damaging to commercial property owners, small shop owners and cause unintended consequences.”
But the council indicated a willingness to listen to residents such as Brian Eamer, who argued that commercial development in the city has skewed far from serving residents in favor of serving tourists.
“Malibu citizens’ basic retail needs are going unmet,” Eamer said. “The commercial environment is unbalanced toward high-end shopping.”
Many have expressed concern that local “mom and pop” stores are being driven out of Malibu in favor of high-end retail stores and national chain stores, which are heavily clustered in the Civic Center area.
The potential rule capping certain types of stores would “de-cluster” those areas either by limiting the number of certain types of stores that can operate in an area, or establishing a minimum amount of space required between similar stores, or both. For instance, a shopping center could be restricted to two clothing stores and required to be spaced apart by 200 feet or more. The minimum could also apply to chain stores that have more than 10 stores nationwide. Such a rule could theoretically increase options for more community-serving businesses to move in.
Associate Planner Joseph Smith said the City of Carmel had enacted a similar rule limiting the number of jewelry stores within city limits to 32. Smith said a member of the Carmel planning department he had spoken to said the law had resulted in more diversity of stores within that city. However, the staff member also said the law had unintentionally empowered landlords at the expense of tenants. With only 32 spaces in town, landlords were able to charge higher rent for their spaces, forcing out smaller and presumably more community-oriented jewelry operations.
The council also directed staff to study and come back with an alternative plan, which would use development incentives instead of a city law to encourage developers and landlords to provide favorable rents to small independent businesses. Such incentives could include increasing the floor area ratio (the amount of a commercial parcel a developer is allowed to build retail or office space on), which would allow developers to build larger structures in exchange for a promise to rent the extra space to local businesses at reduced rates.
Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rosenthal said that while she respected the business community’s aversion to unnecessary regulation, she doubted that recent, favorable leases signed by such popular local stores as European Shoe Repair would have happened without outside pressure.
“It’s these kind of things and that pressure, whether it’s community pressure or a regulation, that keeps people on their toes and doing the right thing,” Rosenthal said.
Shop local campaign to be implemented
In addition, the council Monday night agreed to embark on a “shop local” campaign to keep dollars spent by Malibu residents within the community. The council authorized staff to pay $1,000 to the non-profit American Independent Business Alliance, or AMIBA, to set up a Malibu campaign. Founded in Colorado, AMIBA helps communities launch and operate entrepreneurial programs such as “shop local” campaigns.
The non-profit would set up an Independent Business Association, which would be charged with running the campaign.