Commercial Accountability
Earn your place.
Keep it by serving.
Mainstay is how every business, clinic, teacher, and employer in URBAL keeps their lease. Not by paying rent. By serving the community well enough that 25,000 stewards vote to keep them.
[Image: Mainstay annual cycle — July flagging, December ballot, January new operators]
Annual cycle
July flag → December ballot → January turnover. No exceptions.
Applies to everyone
Spice Tray cafés, inner wall clinics, teachers, and outer wall employers all re-compete.
Flag in July
Any steward can flag any operator. Five months to improve before the ballot.
December ballot
Three days. Private vote. Binding result. Recorded on immutable ledger.
Mainstay status
Consistently high performers earn automatic renewal. No ballot. Top placement.
New operators Jan 1
Removed businesses are replaced by the waitlist competitor the community chose.
[Image: annual calendar — July flag window, December ballot, January handover]
The Annual Cycle
Flag in July. Ballot in December. New operator on January 1.
Every commercial lease in URBAL — every Spice Tray café, inner wall clinic, rooftop teacher, and outer wall employer — faces an annual accountability review. The calendar is fixed, public, and runs the same way for every operator every year.
July
Any steward can flag any operator. Flagging opens a public performance review and gives the operator five months to respond. Flags are visible to all stewards.
December
Three-day private ballot. Stewards vote on every flagged operator and every lease due for renewal. Results are final, non-appealable, and written to the immutable ledger before midnight on day three.
January 1
Removed operators vacate. The waitlist competitor with the next-highest community score takes the space. No gap. No negotiation. The town the stewards chose exists by January 2.
[Image: Mainstay badge — gold designation, high-traffic placement, community trust signal]
Mainstay Status
Skip the ballot. Keep the best placement. Carry the community's trust.
Consistently high steward ratings earn automatic renewal — no ballot unless formally challenged — plus the best placement in the zone. Mainstay is not awarded by URBAL. It is earned from the community, and the community can take it back.
[Image: four operator types — Spice Tray café, inner wall clinic, rooftop school, outer wall employer]
Who It Applies To
Every operator in every zone. No exceptions.
Mainstay applies to every commercial relationship in the town — not just retail. The doctor in the clinic is subject to the same accountability as the café on the Spice Tray. The teacher running a K–12 LLC competes the same way. The employer on the outer wall re-earns their lease annually.
Spice Tray operators
Cafés, bakeries, galleries, performance venues, kiosks, workshops. 489 buildings across 24 corridors. Every one re-competes every December.
Inner wall clinics
Physician LLCs, dentistry, pharmacy, optometry, mental health, specialist offices. Medical accountability is structural, not regulatory.
Teacher LLCs
K–12 educators and daycare providers hold rooftop campus leases. The same December ballot that removes a bad café removes an ineffective teacher.
Outer wall employers
Every employer holding a lease on the outer wall re-competes annually. If the community votes them out, a replacement employer from the waitlist takes the space.
[Image: December ballot UI — three-day window, conviction score slider, immutable ledger seal]
The December Ballot
Three days. No noise. Binding results. On the ledger before midnight.
Stewards vote yes or no on each operator, with a conviction score that sets the passage bar — a thin, unenthusiastic majority can't force anyone out. Results are final and on the immutable ledger before midnight on day three.
Take a closer look
How Mainstay works in full.
July flagging
July flagging
Any steward can flag any operator. No threshold.
In July, any steward can flag any operator — café, clinic, teacher, or employer — for underperformance. A flag does not remove the operator. It triggers a public performance review that is visible to all stewards and opens a five-month cure window. The operator can see the flag, respond publicly, and demonstrate improvement. Multiple flags on the same operator carry more weight in the December ballot. URBAL platform surfaces the pattern; stewards make the decision.
December ballot
Three days. Private. Conviction-weighted.
The December ballot runs for three days. During this window, outside internet is reduced to emergency-only — removing ambient noise and external influence. Stewards vote privately through URBAL OS. For each flagged operator, they vote yes (renew) or no (remove), and submit a conviction score between 60% and 90% expressing how broadly they believe the community should agree. The passage threshold is the average conviction score from the majority side, rounded to the nearest 5%. Results are final, non-appealable, on the ledger before midnight on day three.
Waitlist entry
Removed operators replaced from a scored waitlist.
Every Spice Tray zone, inner wall position, and outer wall slot has a scored waitlist of competing operators who pledged during the raise. When a slot opens, the next-highest-scoring competitor on the waitlist takes the space beginning January 1. There is no negotiation and no gap. The town never has an empty Spice Tray. URBAL manages the waitlist; stewards set the ranking criteria through governance.
Mainstay status
Earned from the community. Skips the ballot.
Operators with consistently high steward ratings over multiple annual cycles earn Mainstay designation. Mainstay operators are automatically renewed and do not appear on the December ballot unless formally challenged. They receive the highest-visibility placement in their zone and are surfaced prominently in steward and visitor recommendations. The designation is earned from aggregate steward ratings — not assigned by URBAL, not purchased, and not permanent. A single poor year can reopen the ballot.
Renovation credit
8-year vesting on approved capital improvements.
Operators who make approved capital improvements to their leased space earn a renovation credit against their monthly fee: (Total Renovation Cost × 80%) ÷ 8 years ÷ 12 months = monthly credit. This incentivises long-term investment and quality improvement rather than short-term performance. Renovation credits are recorded on the ledger and continue even during a renewal year.
No legacy tenure
No operator is above the ballot. Ever.
Mainstay status can be revoked. A formally challenged Mainstay operator returns to the December ballot. A ballot removal is permanent — the PLC is not renewed and the space goes to the waitlist. There is no appeal mechanism, no injunction path, and no URBAL override. Quiet Council cannot intercede. The result of the ballot is the authority. This is structural, not aspirational: the immutable ledger cannot be amended after the vote.
For businesses
Pledge before the raise. Earn 0% sales tax. Forever.
Businesses that pledge jobs before the raise closes earn a 0% town sales tax rate, recorded permanently on the immutable ledger. Late entrants pay 3–8% — set by the Quiet Council. The gap compounds every year of operation. Mainstay status on top of 0% tax creates a structural competitive advantage that compounds over time for operators who serve the community well from the start.
Your move