Seaside Councilmember Alexis García-Arrazola is on a mission to fill vacant commercial spaces.

To beautify the city of Seaside and encourage local entrepreneurs to open up shop downtown, City Councilmember Alexis García-Arrazola is proposing placing a commercial vacancy tax on the November ballot.

“I’ve done these business tours since 2020 when I was first elected, and the thing that kept coming up was that there are a lot of vacancies downtown and we need to stir up more business,” García-Arrazola says.

He first floated the idea of a combined vacant commercial and residential tax in 2022, which he says ultimately withered on the vine due to the residential side of the initiative. This time around, he says the proposed tax would only apply to empty business space. The details of the potential measure are still in the works as the Seaside City Council mulls a report about the roughly 30 commercial vacancies in the city, requested by García-Arrazola and set to be presented on Thursday, Feb. 5.

“I know people are going to push back, but sometimes, this is what needs to happen,” García-Arrazola says. “People want a community that’s vibrant.”

With the revenue generated by a commercial vacancy tax, García-Arrazola hopes to provide seed money for affordable housing projects in the city.

Darryl Choates, owner of Deja Blue on Broadway, says he supports the tax, which he sees as a way to reduce blight and force out-of-town property owners to pay their fair share of city services like police and fire.

“Some of them don’t care if the properties are rented or not because they have so much property,” Choates says. “But here in Seaside we want the area to grow and we want everybody to participate.”