Bill 4-4: Sale of MarketPlatz Parcels

It is proposed that all land surrounding the MarketPlatz which is not already privately owned, and not to include the Rathhaus and the Kirche, be divided into parcels similar to the other City parcels of Neualtenburg, and sold.

It is further proposed that the resulting new parcels be identified as a new zoning district, and that the deeds covering the proposed sales contain covenant terms which differ from the covenant terms of lots in other zoning districts.

Explanation.

The MarketPlatz is potentially the commercial and cultural center of Neualtenburg. It is not only the location of the telehub, it is also the focal point of the architectural concept from which the City sprang. Our failure to use this potential has been a severe handicap to the success and growth of the City.

I maintain that what is needed around the MarketPlatz, in addition to the cultural monuments… the Rathaus and the Kirche, perhaps the view of the imposing Schloss, is a thriving environment of commercial and social activity. The Platz is the “Announcement Sign” of Neualtenburg. A visitor rezzing at the telehub receives their first impression, lasting impression, from the environment they see. It is utterly imperative for us to create the essence of Neualtenburg in that first impression.

And what is this symbolic “essence”? We have not talked about this much, except in the negative. E.g. we are not a mall, we are not Tringo, we are not dancing clubs or sex parlors.

We ARE society and commerce. We are society as a group of people engaged in substantive discussion about the system of own community.. (think, the plazas of coffee houses of Europe… the bars and debating establishments… Altenburg’s own “plateia” of tables and chairs for sitting and arguing…) . We have our classic biergarten, certainly a cultural monument in Nburg history.

And we ARE commerce. Commerce is what motivates individuals to think up ways to bring visitors to Nburg in the first place. Even the coffee shops will compete. Citizens, operating from their own property, in control of their own prims, their own money; these are the most energetic workers bringing both visitors and new residents to our City.

Some will fear that divesting these valuable properties, valuable in their “symbolic value” to the City at large, will cause the deterioration of these very values, as the values become subordinated to the self-oriented nature of an individual’s endeavors. However, if that “divestment” is framed in a clear covenant for the use of the land, I maintain that self-oriented endeavor is the very energy source which *will* bring the most visitors, the most new citizens, to our door.

The covenant has the following terms, in addition to those in the standard covenant (a new document will be prepared by which the deed-signer agrees to these terms).

(1) The primary purpose of the parcel is commercial, either goods or services. The ground floor, at least, must be devoted to commercial purpose. The upstairs may be residential. The owner may apply to the Guild for free “rental” of the Platz area in front of their parcel for the purpose of moveable objects… tables, chairs, vendors. The Guild reserves the right to arrange such objects consistent with the free flow of traffic through the Platz; and removal of the objects for various Guild sponsored events (such as the regular Sunday flea market).

(2) The owner is expected to devote substantial effort to the growth of their business at this location. We expect you to make money. A city approved vendor may be required so as to track the success of this. Some form of money or dwell tracking may be performed, and there may be a criteria permitting continuance. Should the owner fail to achieve a success commensurate with the goals of the City for its Platz, the City may exercise the right of eminent domain and “Reclaim” the parcel at fair cost.

(3) The owner is required to take care to maintain the theme of Nburg. Because this location is the Platz, additional oversight will apply. A compliance committee of the Guild reserves the right to prohibit signage, objects, or goods for sale which it feels contrary to the intentions of the City with regard to the Platz, a decision which is appeal-able to the SC.


Only by a committed divestment of this valuable property to the proven energy resource of individual initiative can the City hope to achieve its goals for the MarketPlatz. The “marketplace” has proven over and over again in RL world history that it is the true driver of human accomplishment. With oversight guidance from those appointed to preserve the founding values of the Neualtenburg enterprise, this proposal can finally bring the flower to bloom.


Sudane

wOOt

I have always thought that the Platz would be well used in this manner (as a commercial hub) and as someone who has tried to run a business out of Neualtenburg I welcome this change.

There are some aspects that (as a store owner) I kind of balked at at first, like the "city approved vendor" and "city approved look" etc., but as an Nburger I can see how these are really quite essential.

I also (as an Nburger), can see how the part you are kind of underplaying a bit in regards businesses being rotated out if they cant perform or conform is going to be similarly essential given the small number of spaces available.

Given all that however, my preference would be to see this as a rental scheme instead of the businesses having to purchase lots.

Everything about it kind of speaks to it being a rental of space from the city as opposed to actually owning a store. Prim control would be essential, businesses would have their sales "monitored" sort of by the city and the Platz area itself would be rented. Why not use the standard kind of rental agreements and setups that are all over SL?

Or am I just being picky over the wording?

I thought this too. However, as soon as we get renters, we re-open the "What does it mean to be a citizen?" question. Would these merchants have the vote?, for example.

The other thing I think we should put in is a requirement that prospective renters/buyers (whichever we decide) should explain what kind of business they want to put in when they apply to move in, and that this should be approved by someone (RA or Guild). Similar approvals should be required for a substantive change (for example, changing your clothing store to a housewares store)

In theory, I am surely not opposed to anything which enables us to preserve the quality of the environment which we have sought to establish.

But the more I discussed these matters with Kendra, the more it became clear to both of us that there is an urgent need to simplify the process of joining the City and setting up shop. It's simple for us. For new people arriving at our door, it is intensely confusing. As we go about the process of honing and refining these and other requirements of participation, let us always have the mantra... Keep It Simple Stupid!!!


Sudane

I see youe point. However .....

1) We have to ask what sort of establishment a prospective merchant intends to open to make sure it doesn't violate theme or our existing covenants. For example , there's a no pornography provision in the standard covenant which would preclude someone opening a store to sell , say, erotic poseballs. I would imagine theme considerations would also prevent a specialist in machine guns and artillery.

2) It is in the city's interest to have a variety of commercial establishments on the platz.

3) Compared to a mainland purchase, moving in to Neualtenburg is difficult. There's no way around that unless we abandon much of our covenant and land system. There's the group, the deeds, etc.. Since a merchant, or anyone, has to go through these steps anyway, one additional question of "What kind of store is it?" doesn't seem especially onerous. I would even rather the RA not deal with this, as it seems to me more of a guild matter. I do think it's important that someone stays on top of how these plots get developed. As Sudane pointed out, the Platz that a visitor sees when they rez in makes an indelible first impression about the whole city. A commercial space that isn't a good fit could be more damaging to the city's image than an empty storefront. Far better to keep abreast of what merchants want to do and solve these problems before the merchants get up and running than to have messy eminent domain proceedings after the fact when things go wrong.

Also, should we explicitly ban camping chairs, money trees, etc. in the commercial covenant?

I agree with all these points but it still seems logical to me that if the "owners" of these stores are in almost every functional sense more like renters than owners, then to actually make them rental tenants will end up being both easier and more efficient in the long run. What if they (like most mall renters) don't actually want to live above their store? There are a lot of people already that have a presence in Neualtenburg city (commercial or otherwise), that don't actually "live" there per se.

A part of the constitutional review/tweaking process we are going through now is to clearly define concepts like "resident" and "citizen." Renters would presumably be the former but not necessarily the later.

I am coming late to this debate so perhaps this has already been discussed. I am also just throwing this out as a quick "off the top of my head" idea and I don't want to put the breaks on what seems like a well developed plan, but perhaps there *should* be a way to be a "resident" of Neualtenburg and have a business here without being a "citizen" in the sense of citizenship being based on the ownership of land.

I realise this might be better off as a topic of future debate, but it seems to so directly address the very problems you are talking about in regards the barriers to doing business in Neualtenburg. If it were possible to merely rent a shop in Neualtenburg as opposed to "buying in" and becoming a citizen it would certainly go a long way to dropping that barrier.

Even as it screws up our main definition of what it is to be a "citizen" and muddies the whole issue of who gets to vote even further.

I could see the point in doing so. While I've found them useful as a newly-born resident of Second Life, they do seem a little... tacky or something.


This also sounds plausible -- I can also imagine that not every shopkeeper will want to vote (dealing with the covenants may already be enough for them without having to worry about the Constitution, amendments thereto, bills, etc.).

Or have both options open: have renting be the default, but if they want to be a citizen, allow them to purchase land, either elsewhere in the city (assuming there are plots free) or to have them purchase rather than rent the shop.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sudane's proposal in so far as it applies to the buildings around the Marktplatz. We have a very large unused potential here that could be turned into an engine of growth and a source of increased attention from the community of casual, everyday SL users.

On the one hand I appreciate our desire to present a welcoming and easy 'interface' for prospective users of the commercial plots surrounding the Marktplatz and I can understand how the process of obtaining land in Neualtenburg may appear slightly more cumbersome than the standard SL method. On the other hand however I believe there are significant benefits in having a process in place that ensures our marketplace is filled with merchants, who has shown an interest in Neualtenburg strong enough to overcome minor obstacles such as the slight bureaucracy of our Raumnutzung.

I think it would be a pity if this initiative necessitates the re-opening of a larger philosophical debate on what it means or requires to be a citizen of Neualtenburg. I believe that the city benefits from having as many residents with an open-ended possibility for involvement as possible. A commercial or residential involvement in our community should therefore in my view be linked with the possibility albeit not the requirement for participation in the political life and decision making of Neualtenburg. Thus, shopkeepers should be given political rights regardless of whether they are only renting or if they actually buy their properties.

One might observe that the desire to have shopkeepers buy their property could potentially conflict with the city's interest in being able to ensure on a periodic basis that the revenue and traffic generated by shopkeepers meets the ambitions of the city. I believe this to be a valid techinical consideration in drafting the arrangement.

As regards the exact mechanism for regulation of shopkeepers' turnover I think it would be unnecessarily bureaucratical to insist on the installation of city-approved vendors with reporting facilities or something similar. Instead I'd propose that we use the market mechanism for this purpose: Every six months the city would be inclined to raise the monthtly land fee for the commercial zone around the Marktplatz in line with expectations for turnover and any shopowners with a turnover too low to sustain their business under the new economic conditions would automatically opt not to re-negotiate their lease instead being replaced by a vendor able to make a business generate a profit under the new growth goals.

However this of course also raises the prospect of shopkeepers trying to squeeze the lemon and maximise their turnover by use of mechanisms that could be considered unsuitable for Neualtenburg from an aestethical point of view. There is certainly the potential for conflict here: On the one hand we have the city authorities, who wish to maximise traffic and revenue generated from the shopkeepers and who therefore continue to raise the occupancy fee, while at the same time we have the interest from the city government (perhaps the Guild) in maintaining a coherent and aestethically suitable experience around the Marketplace, and who would therefore wish to limit the array of techniques that shopkeepers could put into use to drive revenue and traffic to their stall.

Shopkeepers might end up between a rock and a hard place if the result is ongoing uncertainty about their level of freedom to pursue commercial iniatives and respond to current trends in demand. Nobody will want to commit themselves to a six-month lease if there is a high level of uncertainty as to what the shopkeeper may arrange or re-arrange during the period because of aestethical considerations. It will therefore be necessary I think to carve out a very explicit framework specifying what is disallowed when operating from a Marktplatz stall and establish the principle that everything not explicitly mentioned in this covenant is permissable at least until a new occupancy agreement is negotiated at the beginning of a new term of occupancy.

Hopefully, we will be able to attract vendors who base their business more on the originality and sophistication of their products and services to generate business than on some cheap money tricks or on pollution of the visual environment. If we are succesful in attracting such business I think the potential for a conflict of the above sort will be minimised.

We can and should be ambitious as regards the commercial potential of the Marktplatz. On a concluding note I'd like to remark however, that we should perhaps also consider putting enough flexibility into our concept to allow for businesses that are not yet economically mature but who have a solid business potential in terms of an original idea or great artistic talent to be able to use our Marktplatz as a springboard from which to grow their business.

I look forward to discussing this further possibly at the RA meeting today.