Interim City Administrator Steve Albright said the matter came up after South Shore Little League expressed interest in a city-owned building on Golf Avenue, formerly occupied by the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce.
Regarding the Golf Avenue site, “The building has deteriorated. That should be no surprise to you,” Albright told the council during the April 14 meeting.
Albright said the goal of the proposed policy is to get good community use out of city properties.
His report to the council included two options – selecting community service organizations or renting on the commercial market.
Under the first option, the city would take proposals from community nonprofits and service groups, select one and make the buildings available for $1 a year.
If no nonprofits or other government agencies were interested in the spaces, the city could make the properties available on the commercial market, said Albright.
Council member Judy Thein supported renting properties to nonprofits but was against the city being a commercial landlord and competing with private enterprise.
“We have a history of doing this,” said Thein, who retired several years ago after more than two decades working in the city's finance department. “We need to learn from our mistakes.”
She said after the city purchased the Austin's Resort property in 1997 it was “one disaster after another” when it came to dealing with tenants. Thein said the city often had to go to collections and to court to try to recover tents.
Council member Jeri Spittler said she didn't think the commercial rental option would be necessary, since community groups, like the Little League, had already expressed interest in renting city property.
Vice Mayor Joey Luiz agreed that it didn't make sense to rent the properties commercially. However, he said nonprofits would need to be aware of the need for improvements and be willing to make them.
Councilman Curt Giambruno asked about relocation costs involved in renting. Albright said the city is required under the National Uniform Relocation Act to cover the relocation of tenants. When Giambruno asked if they can draw up leases that exclude relocation costs, Albright said he wasn't sure.
Mayor Joyce Overton said City Attorney Malathy Subramanian previously researched that very issue and found that they could write it into a lease up front that there be no relocation costs.
Thein said the city had to pay such costs for existing tenants at Austin's Resort, but that it was written into the leases with new tenants that the costs were not covered.
Overton said she's not necessarily in favor of having the city be a landlord, but noted that many cities are. “It's just an option that should be there.”
Thein said they were buying trouble by keeping that option on the table. “This is where all of our problems started,” she said. “We should never have gone into the rental business. We have enough to do.”
The council ended the discussion with a unanimous vote to pursue the rental option to nonprofits.
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