Last month the Orinda City Council voted to provide money to local businesses to help them update their façades. The program will provide up to $10,000 for projects costing under $10,000, and for more expensive projects, the city will provide the first $10,000 and will then match an additional $20,000 spent by the business. Businesses will be able to receive a total of $30,000 grant funding.

    The pilot program is scheduled to begin this month and run through June of next year. A total of $75,000 has been allocated to the program. The pilot program has to pass through the Planning Commission, which next meets on July 14, and then return to the City Council for final adoption of the enabling ordinance.

    The funds will be available for numerous permanent improvements to business facades, including paint or surface treatments, signage, awnings and canopies, permanent outdoor seating, windows, doors, cornices and storefront replacement, exterior lighting, landscaping, planting or decorative fencing, and improvements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also included will be permit fees not waived by the city, including Contra Costa County building permit fees.

    Either property owners or tenants may apply for funding, but tenants must show that they have authority from the property owner to effect improvements. The presentation to the City Council by Cole Haselip, Assistant to the City Manager, included a PowerPoint slide show. 

    Haselip reported that Orinda had been inspired by similar programs to encourage façade improvement in nearby cities, such as Alameda, which offered a 50% matching grant up to $20,000 per project and Fairfield, which offered grants of up to $10,000 to cover 75% of costs of minor projects or up to $25,000 to cover 50% of costs for major projects between $10,000 and $50,000. 

    Milpitas covered either 75% of project costs or $25,000, whichever was less. And Oakland, with a population of over 400,000, offered $25,000 with no match and additional funds requiring a 50% match up to $30,000 total based on façade length. Pittsburg and Dublin in Contra Costa County both offered façade improvement grants.

    The presentation included some before and after photos of façade improvements in other areas, which included a strip mall in Dublin and a Starbucks coffee shop in Monterey. Additionally, staff presented some “wish casting” images of several Orinda locations, showing their current state and what might be possible with a façade update.  

    City Council members noticed that the “after” images included different shops than are currently existing, and Haselip assured them that the city wants the program to benefit existing businesses. “Chat GPT is not that sophisticated,” he explained.

    Haselip answered questions from the council on issues such as the use of discretion in selecting the properties for the grants, and how the city could encourage businesses to avail of the grants. In responding, Haselip said that proposed projects would be compared and that the city intended to use every avenue of communication to get word of the grants out to Orinda businesses.

    City Manager Linda Smith talked about the evolution of the proposal. “Part of the reason why we had a no match to start at that first level is because some feedback we received from the business community about  where their level of interest was and we wanted to make sure we could capture people that may be interested in some minor modifications like awnings.” She added, “Then we get into the matching beyond that when we start getting more substantive changes that people would potentially make including maybe painting façades. It gets expensive but starting with the smaller pieces; maybe we could change out awnings or change out a window or railings, or things like that, that can improve the aesthetic of the building.”