Meeting tonight and Oct. 29 to discuss upcoming vote by downtown residents on funding Los Angeles Streetcar

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The Los Angeles Streetcar project is holding two public meetings in downtown to explain and discuss the upcoming vote for downtown residents on whether they should tax themselves to help fund the streetcar.

Specifically, the vote is whether a “community facilities district” should be created downtown, the idea being that residents within the district levy a tax on themselves. The tax is based on property values; Los Angeles Streetcar says that the typical condo owner will pay about $60 per year.

I’ll be blunt: the vote is critical to building the streetcar in the near-term. The Community Facilities District is expected to pay about half the $125 million cost of the project and having local funding is critical to attracting the federal funding that will be needed to complete the streetcar.

Ballots will be mailed to registered voters in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 13 and they must be returned by Nov. 28. Here’s a look at the Community Facilities District below, along with the route chosen for the streetcar, which will be easily accessible from many Metro bus routes, including the Silver Line, along with the Red/Purple Line subway and the future Regional Connector.

Click above to see larger.

17 thoughts on “Meeting tonight and Oct. 29 to discuss upcoming vote by downtown residents on funding Los Angeles Streetcar”

  1. calwatch,

    Let alone even have a need to spend $5 for a day pass for short rides that involves transfers. Why would anyone want to pay $5 to go from MacArthur Park to Staples Center when it’s only 2 miles away? It’s cheaper to carpool and split the cost of parking.

  3. The real question is if this does get built who foots the bill for operating expenses? I assume since Metro is involved they will be providing the operation funding. Portland is having issues with keeping up with promised head ways due to lack of Trimet funding.

  4. Hi everyone;

    It’s a city of Los Angeles project although Metro did the environmental studies because of the agency’s expertise in doing such work.

    Steve Hymon
    Editor, The Source

  5. Mr Hyman:

    This is pretty irresponsible to pass on the myth that the typical condo owner will pay about $60 per year. The exact language on the LASI website is the Median condo will pay $60 per year. Ive seen reports from other sources stating it would be closer to $200 to $500 per year for a condo that measures 1000 sq feet.

    I hope you understand that typical and median mean two different things. why didn’t metro release the actual per square foot calculation of this tax? Sure you are just helping out, but as a partner you have a fiduciary responsibility to provide facts to the voters.

  7. By saying metro did the environmental studies is a stretch of the truth. Metro acted as a vendor manager and hired HDR Engineering to do the study for $2.26 Million Dollars.

    So is metro’s expertise conducting environmental studies or managing vendors to do such studies? You statement makes one think Metro is an expert a environmental studies when really they are managing vendor to do the work. Two completely different things.

    Also I was able to gleam some facts from the City’s council action:
    http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2011/11-0329-S6_CA_07-31-12.pdf

    Saying the average property owner will pay $60 per year is not true. You mentioned they are based on property values, but they are not. The tax is based on parcel square footage and the rates are as follows for the 3 zones:
    Zone 1 $.59670 per square foot
    Zone 2 $.41769 per square foot
    Zone 3 $.20885 per square foot
    Doing some simple calculations one would have to have a property at zone 3 at 300 square feet to come close to the stated $60 calculation. 150 sq feet at zone 2 and 100 square feet at zone 1. Obviously most condos are larger than 300 square feet.

    Additionally the maximum term of the tax is 40 years. That is 10 years longer than what has been reported. Also they can raise it up to 10% of the rate at each zone to cover delinquent property owners. So the rates can go up albeit a small amount.

    So it appears LASI and it’s partner Metro are tying to sell a bill of goods at artificially low price. Most Condo owners will certainly pay more that $60 per year.

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