Place your BIDs: Property owners propose downtown business improvement district

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By David Forbes on 03/27/2012 01:00 PM

Many city residents first encountered the term in 2009, when Boston-based consultants Goody Clancy recommended the idea in their draft of what became Ashevilles Downtown Master Plan. Council adopted the plan later that year, and a series of committees established by the Downtown Commission went to work on implementing it. One of them, the Downtown Management Subcommittee, was charged with crafting a specific proposal for the BID. Recently, the subcommittee has begun pitching its plan to Council, civic groups and the general public, in part through a series of public meetings.

BIDs provide specified services to a designated area. In Asheville's case, the proposal calls for City Council to levy a special tax on downtown property 7 cents per $100 of property valuation to help fund the BID.

Basically it will add a layer of services above and beyond what the city provides, says downtown resident Susan Griffin, who chairs the Downtown Management Subcommittee. There's no one model for a BID: They're really based around local needs.

With an estimated budget of $700,000 to $900,000 a year, the local BID would be aiming to keep downtown clean, green and safe. To accomplish this, the nonprofit would fund 10 to 12 distinctly uniformed downtown ambassadors, who would help keep the area clean, assist visitors and generally keep an eye on things. In various presentations, Griffin has said the ambassadors would try to deter "illegal or undesirable behavior" ranging from panhandling to people lingering on the sidewalk.

They clean up, they check out if there are problem spots if a sidewalk needs power-washing, for example, Griffin explains. They're trained specifically to deal with issues like panhandling; they have contact with the police. The goal is to make this a more efficient downtown. The ambassadors, she says, could also help with things like escorting employees who leave work late at night.

In addition to the tax assessment, the city and county are each being asked to directly contribute about $150,000 per year to the BID's budget. Griffin calls this an investment; an economic-impact study her subcommittee commissioned estimates that the BID could boost property-tax revenues in the district by about 2 percent a year, and sales-tax revenue by 5 percent. The proposal would also bind city government to maintain its current level of total spending on downtown.

If approved by Council in May, the BID would get an initial three-year term, after which the city could decide whether to renew. In the meantime, however, the nonprofit would be free to spend those tax dollars however it saw fit, as long as it provided the specified services.

Asheville's Downtown Master Plan cites the example of a BID setting up security cameras and/or providing additional security patrols. Griffin says the BID would have more modest goals, though once approved and funded, the board could decide on a different approach.

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Place your BIDs: Property owners propose downtown business improvement district