City Ups Budgets for 13 BIDs

NEW YORK CITY-Thirteen of the city’s existing 59 Business Improvement Districts will have their budgets increased under a bill signed Monday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The mayor also signed legislation establishing a new BID, which will promote business development in the Belmont section of the Bronx.

The 13 BIDs are located in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. In Manhattan, the BIDS include 34th Street, 47th Street, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Square, Lower East Side and Village Alliance. Brooklyn BIDs that will see their annual assessments increase are Brighton Beach, Sunset Park, 5th Avenue, Myrtle Avenue and Church Avenue. Queens BIDs affected by the legislation include 82nd Street and Steinway Street. In the Bronx, the Kingsbridge BID will see an increase.

The percentage increases vary from BID to BID. For example, the 34th Street BID will see an 8.1% increase to approximately $9.3 million, while the Steinway Street’s authorized annual expenditures will increase from $250,000 to $325,000, a 30% gain.Comprised of 350 businesses in the Bronx’s Little Italy section–once home to Dion DiMucci of Dion & the Belmonts fame–the Belmont BID will have a budget of $340,000 for its first year of operation.

In prepared remarks at Monday’s bill-signing ceremony, Bloomberg noted that the BIDs “provide maintenance and sanitation services, security services, marketing and promotion of local businesses, holiday lighting, economic development, beautification and landscaping to a variety of neighborhoods. The services provided to the community are essential to ensuring that small businesses, and the neighborhoods in which they operate, are given every opportunity to succeed.” BIDs, which have also been widely credited with making their neighborhoods more attractive to commercial development, are self-funded by local property owners and overseen by the city’s Department of Small Business Services.