BID Prospect Generates Cautious Enthusiasm
BY THOMAS COGAN

Tony Barsamian, chairman emeritus of the Steinway Street Business Improvement District, extols the advantages of a BID to an audience of activists, politicians and business figures at the Sunnyside Senior Center this past Monday, May 22.

Several activists, politicians and business figures came to the Sunnyside Senior Center on a Monday in mid-May to declare support for the effort to establish a Business Improvement District (BID) in Sunnyside, with a consequent District Merchants' Association (DMA). Nearly all of them talked about the expense involved, emphasizing its necessity. The inevitable PowerPoint show was put on to stress the virtues of a BID that would cover parts of Greenpoint Avenue and Queens Boulevard. Adissenting voice was raised, but even that speaker seemed impressed by the idea, or by what a BID could do for Sunnyside. At the end of the meeting, one could conclude cautiously that BID advocates were making progress, but also understand why the campaign for a BID in Sunnyside has gone on for a long while yet remains short of fulfillment.

First of the enthusiasts was Eric Gioia. The local City Councilmember told the meeting that BIDs excite him. He said that with a budget funded by landlords within a BID's territory, a BID can handle local problems such as sanitation and security within its own bounds with its own money, rather than merely hoping for city services funded with the business taxes its members pay. "You work hard for your money," he said. "You should know how it is spent." In contrast to taxation, BID fees are direct fiscal action, he said. "You pay, you see."

Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley (second from l.) was among the proponents of a Sunnyside BID.

Tony Barsamian spoke as the past chairman of the board of the Steinway Street BID and current board chairman emeritus. He said that Steinway Street in Astoria had a strong merchants' association at the time of the founding in 1992, but it has become stronger with the coming of a BID. Skeptics told him that expenses would become runaway, he said, warning that the $200,000 budget at the outset would probably mount to $1 million in the course of a decade. He said that 14 years later it is $250,000, the additional amount being less than the cost of living increase. Those financing the BID have their property assessed, usually based on a formula involving frontage and square footage. He identified security, sanitation and marketing as the most important benefits of a BID, along with "being a voice at a public meeting".

Matthew Bauer, president of the Madison Avenue DMA, said that the total of BIDs in the city is now 54. BIDs, he pointed out, create a dedicated funding stream and allow members to create a year-by-year trajectory of local needs and enhancements. The Madison Avenue DMA has a 32-member board and holds a merchants' reception every other month. Sending literature to members is vital and feedback is constantly sought.

John Vogt, a White Castle executive and currently president of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, has been leading the effort to establish a BID on Greenpoint Avenue and Queens Boulevard. Years ago, his initial reaction to BIDs was negative, when he encountered them in Brooklyn. Closer study of their operation and effect brought him around. Trying to establish a BID in Sunnyside requires perseverance, since it's what he called a "secretive" place, with well-hidden landlords. He said that interested parties have established a budget of $300,000, "one of the hardest things we came up with", based on a combination of assessed value and frontage. (That it is larger than the budget on Steinway Street is owing to the fact that the Sunnyside BID would be larger than Steinway Street's five-block strip.) The greatest needs are sanitation, security, graffiti clean-up, street furniture, an upgrade of facades and awnings and marketing and promotion. This last need would entail Christmas lights, which have not been hung in Sunnyside in a decade because they are deemed unaffordable. The list of objectives, which Vogt projected in PowerPoint, includes a plan for development of Sunnyside, improvement of local appearance, promotion of Sunnyside, business retention and acquisition of national stores. (Vogt cited Barnes & Noble as an example of the latter-not Starbucks, since he believes the White Castle on Queens Boulevard and 23rd Street serves excellent coffee.)

George Glatter, assistant commissioner of the city Department of Small Business Services, said that by law, the city cannot reduce services; so Sunnyside would continue to get the services it is owed by the city because of the taxes its businesses pay to it. This is a sore point with some landlords, who are asked to pay for establishment of a BID. Are BID advocates proposing to pay in private for what should be provided them by a city government worthy of the taxes that businesses pay to them in abundance is a question frequently asked. Because a majority of local landlords voting in favor of a BID compel the opposing minority of landlords into membership in the DMA, this is a great irritant with those skeptical about getting a BID started. At the meeting, one landlord's representative said that if the BID goes through and landlords are assessed, many business tenants could go out of business.

The man making the objection was Philip DeDona, who came to the meeting bearing a letter sent by his father, Anthony DeDona, to SBA Commissioner Robert Walsh. The elder DeDona is head of DeDona Enterprises and landlord of the properties at 49-05, 49-09 and 49-11 Roosevelt Ave., those properties being a Korean food and sundries store, a carpet dealer and a Korean restaurant. At the heart of the objection DeDona expressed to Commissioner Walsh was the combination of proposed assessment and actual taxation. The assessment, $4,885.01, would be added to current taxation of $73,231.50. "Please keep in mind," DeDona wrote, "that our taxes have increased by an amount of $15,076.74 (26 percent) in the past two years. The percentages in the past six years are even more staggering." When advised simply to pass expenses along for the tenants to bear, DeDona said his tenants are already groaning under the financial strain. The younger DeDona added that the latest tenants at those addresses were given easier terms than the preceding tenants, who had left, unable to afford the rent. Joseph Conley, Community Board 2 chairman and a property manager in Long Island City, told Philip DeDona that within a BID, services to him would be constant and his tenants would have a say in matters, rather than having to rely on the efficiency of downtown departments. He said that the new Long Island City DMA, in existence since last summer, was able to provide prompt snow clearance within the BID during the record-setting blizzard earlier this year, thus acting as a complement to the snow-clearing services of the Department of Sanitation. DeDona went so far as to say, "I love the concept", but he still believed that the assessment for the BID, on top of taxation, was something DeDona Enterprises and its tenants were bound to find intolerable. Vogt told DeDona that he would like to review the whole BID process with him.

In contrast, Lily Gavin of Dazies Restaurant on Queens Boulevard near 40th Street, said she looked forward to being in a BID, "though it hurts" to handle the assessment.