By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
The Bayside Business Association is planning to individually lobby commercial property owners on Bell Boulevard this fall in an effort to establish a Business Improvement District, a measure whose passage BBA President Judy Limpert said was still uncertain.
The proposed BID, with a budget of $65,000 a year, would compel all property owners on Bell between Northern Boulevard and 35th Avenue to put a certain amount of money toward services such as street cleaning and holiday lights, two items currently paid for the Bayside Business Association.
The amount each owner must pay is determined by a linear storefront footage formula that would wind up costing about $300 a year per owner, said Limpert, manager of the North Fork Bank branches on Northern and Bell boulevards.
For the plan to move forward, the Department of Business Services must get a sense that the BID has support from property owners on the boulevard via ballots that were mailed out about two months ago.
But unlike a referendum, there is no specific threshold for supportive responses that the plan must have to become a formal proposal before the City Planning Commission and eventually the City Council, said Mark Newhouse, assistant commissioner of the Department of Business Services’ Division of Neighborhood Development.
Instead, the agency needs to see that the BID measure is community-driven and that there has been a good faith effort to inform property owners and the community at large.
“When the legislation is presented before the City Council, there is a point at which those in opposition have the ability to object,” said Newhouse, referring to a 30-day period in between Finance Committee hearings on the BID.
Limpert put the level of the BID’s support among property owners at about 50-50 last week, with many of them away during the month of August.
“I don’t know why they’re not responding,” said Limpert. “I think there’s a reluctance to pass (the cost) on to already hurting tenants.”
In an effort to convince property owners, BBA members plan to visit them individually this fall and to hold a meeting with them and BID participants from other parts of Queens.
Limpert warned that the Bayside Business Association would not be able to cover the cost of professional sidewalk cleaning indefinitely without the establishment of a BID.
“I don’t know how much longer we can keep it up,” said Limpert. “If the BID doesn’t go through, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Limpert said she hoped a recent business association golf outing that raised $10,000 could fund the cleaning program until the end of this year.
Property owners’ reluctance posed one obstacle for the BID’s passage. Another is a campaign by East Bayside Homeowners Association president and community board member Frank Skala, who distributed a letter to Bell Boulevard businesses in July asking them to vote against the BID.
Calling the BID a “Business Imminent Disaster,” Skala decried the move to attract more people to the area, saying it would worsen an already-difficult parking situation and cause business owners to pass on the cost of the BID to local consumers.
Limpert said the resignation of Long Island-based LTM Associates, the consulting firm hired to do the BID paperwork, worked in the business association’s favor by saving it money.
Limpert said the company’s president resigned from the Bell Boulevard BID project due to personal problems, but that most of the work — which included compiling a list of property owners and filing papers with the city’s Department of Business Services — was already complete.
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
