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Bellflower council directs staff to survey voters and modernize business-license code as a path to reduce commercial blight
Summary
Bellflower councilors narrowed two options for addressing long-term vacant commercial properties — a parcel/vacancy tax or an updated business-license structure — and directed staff to prioritize a citizen poll on the business-license option while also pursuing a fee study and a new vacancy inventory. Staff highlighted legal, administrative and equity trade-offs for each approach.
Bellflower — The City Council on Feb. 17 debated whether to put a parcel vacancy tax before voters or to modernize the city’s business-license code as a way to reduce long‑term commercial blight and encourage reuse of idle storefronts. After extended discussion, councilors directed staff to begin polling residents and to return with specific survey language, a fee‑study proposal and an updated inventory of vacant parcels and buildings.
Staff framed the issue around two conceptual options: a special parcel/vacancy tax (what staff and consultants described as an Unutilized Commercial Properties Tax, or UCPT) that would typically require two‑thirds voter approval under Proposition 218, and a structural update to Bellflower’s business‑license tax, last materially revised in 1990, that would be subject to a simple majority if framed as a general tax. Consultant Wong Sue told councilors that larger cities have…
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