The Portland City Council has voted to penalize commercial property owners if storefronts are vacant for over six months unless they agree to allow the City to bring in temporary art installations.
Fines for empty storefronts will range from $500 to more than $7,500, depending upon how long the space has gone without housing a business.
The $250 fine would be levied for commercial spaces left vacant between six months and a year, while spaces empty for ten years would be hits with a $7,500 fine. Every year beyond that would increase the fine by $1,000.
Below is a full breakdown of the City’s new fee schedule for vacant commercial properties.
Property owners may, however, obtain a waiver allowing them to leave their properties vacant for an extended period of time without being assessed a fine.
In order to obtain one of these waivers, a commercial property owner must agree to allow the City to set up a temporary art installation in any visible area of the vacant space, including in the exterior windows.
Waivers may also be granted by the City if there are extenuating circumstances preventing a space from being occupied for an extended period of time.
To enforce these new requirements, commercial property owners must register vacant spaces with Portland’s Housing and Economic Development Department within thirty days.
This registry of vacant commercial properties will be made publicly available on the City’s website and will be updated at least once every three months.
Included in this registry will be information about the approved use of each vacant space, as well as the layout, reason for the vacancy, desired rent amount, and the owner’s contact information.
Click Here to Read the Full Ordinance
According to WMTW, Portland City Councilor Kate Sykes views the proposal as a “win-win” because the City is either able to “charge to not basically make the storefront look like it’s empty; otherwise, you get free artwork.”
“The goal here is to make it a livable and vibrant place, not to hurt or bring down or burden any business in any way or any property owner,” Portland City Councilor Sarah Michniewicz said, according to Fox 23 Maine.
This opinion, however, is not shared by everyone in Portland, as some have suggested that vacancies occur due to safety concerns.
“You can have Picassos in that window, and it will not change the tenor of the problems on that intersection,” said resident George Rowe.
Although Portland Mayor Mark Dion said that he believes the new program will help to improve safety, he still voted against the proposal in light of the experiences shared by business owners in the City.
“I have to stand up for the idea that the commercial brokers try to tell you something about their experience in that market,” said Mayor Dion.
“If we refurbish a storefront and someone is passed out on the sidewalk with a needle in their arm, I don’t know what we have accomplished,” Dion said. “You could have the best Picasso in the window, and it’s not going to deter that kind of conduct.”
“I don’t know a commercial real estate owner that doesn’t want their space filled,” Portland resident Bev Uhlenhake said. “They’re not not filling their spaces because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t, and we need to fix the problem.”
