A BID to Maintain and Improve 5th Avenue
A bid for a 5th Avenue BID got stronger last night after receiving unanimous support from members of CB6’s economic/waterfront development committee. The Park Slope 5th Avenue BID—which is set to include the blocks between Dean and 18th streets—would tax the strip’s 600 or so commercial property owners around $500 each (a fee that’d mostly…
A bid for a 5th Avenue BID got stronger last night after receiving unanimous support from members of CB6’s economic/waterfront development committee. The Park Slope 5th Avenue BID—which is set to include the blocks between Dean and 18th streets—would tax the strip’s 600 or so commercial property owners around $500 each (a fee that’d mostly be passed along to the landlords’ retail tenants), thus giving the BID about $300,000 to play with every year. The bulk of that dough would go to promoting and maintaining the avenue, with an emphasis on improving sanitation services. The business improvement district would be the third formed in Community Board 6 (after the ones for Flatbush and Smith Street), and it’s been influenced by Sunset Park’s BID. Irene LoRe, co-owner of Aunt Suzie’s Restaurant and one of the BID’s chief architects, noted that BIDs get better service from the city because they have someone yelling for them. The proposal still needs to be OK’d by the full community board and various powers that be in city government (including the Council and mayor’s office), but it could be formed as early as next summer. Seems to us like a great way to make a thriving commercial stretch even better, and it’s difficult to see any downsides to the plan. Anything we’re missing?
Photo by Betty Blade
18th street and 5th ave is 2 blocks away from prospect ave. this intersection is in SP/GH/SS and not in PS. It belongs to CB7. The question still stands why stop at 18th street.
No silly, Ireland is East Slope.
ireland is south of brooklyn?
😉
Sunset Park’s 5th Ave BID has been pretty succesful and from what I understand from a Community Board 7 meeting I attended last year that it is a model that CB 6 was looking to emulate.
As to why the BID stops at 18th, it has to do with the same neighborhood boundaries that many of Brooklyn’s new residents seem to think are so elastic. Park Slope ends at Prospect Ave. That’s it. They can’t legally extend it further. Prospect Ave runs diagonally, and at some points its as far south as 18th.
What to call the neighborhood south of 18th has been a recent point of minor contention. In the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s (and most likely the ’50’s and ’60;sit was always acknowledged to be the beginning of Sunset Park. In the late ’90’s and early ’00’s, realtors invented the term “Greenwood Heights” to appeal to whites afraid or averse to live in and identify with a neighborhood inhabited by brown immigrants. It seems to have caught on. Whatever. South Slope and Greenwood Heights are invented concepts. They are not real. There is Flatbush Avenue. The neighborhood south of it is Park Slope. The neighborhood south of that is Sunset Park. The neighborhood south of that is Bay Ridge. Then there’s the Atlantic Ocean. Then there’s Ireland.
City cracks down on BID’s:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5254/is_199708/ai_n20218522
good grief – that stretch of 5th Ave does not need a BID! Bed Stuy needs a BID….
2 points:
1. I guarantee that when they(whoever it is) decides to bulldoze those decrepit storefronts next to the Chipshop – some idiot will post how its the end of the world and now Brooklyn is officially dead – with nothing interesting and no culture
2. What difference does it make that the junk seller is puerto rican? – he is clearly the only junk salesman at that location so his ethnic background is totally unnecessary to identify who you are talking about – just wondering
300K is a lot of money to pick up trash and add some xmas lights (which if memory serves, they already do that pre-BID).
i hope someone is keeping watch over that money.
300K could go a long way towards some new streetscaping, benches, and other beautification efforts if left to the right people.
i’ll pick up some lights to string up for 100 bucks at target.
where’s the other 299,900 going?
I own a building on 5th. I was told that sunset park has a very successful BID going. The BID would mostly concentrate on having corner sanitation cans emptied every day and some displays on lighting posts.
I don’t believe that the BID will make a noticeable difference to the avenue.
Also, I thought the BID tax was voluntary. I did not get any notice that I have to pay it. If I do have to pay it, how can I pass it on to the commercial tenant? can’t they just refuse to pay it?