Downtown Development Authority. They set rules of what types of business can go in, what you can do with the looks of the outside of your buildings and what have you. They are usally a group of business owners from the area. Can be really cliquy and if you aren't part of the "cool people" can cause you all kinds of problems. They tend to do what they think is best for their own businesses and not whats good for the area.
1 example. They can rule that grass in front of property between sidewalk and street is to be maintained by city, not property owner. Which sounds great, but can be a real nightmare when the city does a half arse job of doing it, cutting irregularly, getting rid of any flowers or plants you might have put in, not allowing bike racks in front of business. All kinds of nonsense that you don't want to have to put up with but if your within the area the DDA is in charge of, you have no say. You can go to the DDA meetings, voice your concerns, but its like talking to a brick wall. Of course, you can go to court and sue to have the right to do what you want to do, but thats time consuming, expensive, and a pita that you'd rather not have to deal with.
My father, brother, and me bought some commercial property back in the 80s. It was an old garage/gas station and a pool hall next door. We converted the gas station into a 3 unit building and totally redid the pool hall. We put a ton into the property, and for over 15 years our properties were really the only properties that were well maintained, not just for profit, but to make the city look better.
City started picking up and moving from a low end working class neighborhood, to more of a urban yuppie type of scene if you know what I mean. DDA was formed, which we didnt join for a few years, so they had no say what we did (Once you join, theres no leaving). Eventually we gave in, and joined. Big mistake. They don't maintain it worth talking about. They stole the bike wrack we had out there (yep, you read that right, the city stole it), they removed all the bushes and flowers, and they constantly try and move the decorative garbage containers we have out so that people dont have to throw crap on the side walk and street.
The DDA just turned down a million dollar business that wanted to move into the area because he wanted to have automatic doors like you see at some CVS drug stores. Not the big sliding kind, but the type that open the same way normal doors do.