Brooklyn Merchants Oppose the BID they are in.

Merchant ‘revolt’ against Fulton Street BID
By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper

The Brooklyn Paper / Allyse Pulliam

Atchudta Barkr, owner of Sisters Community Hardware at the corner of Fulton Street and Washington Avenue, says she doesn’t need a business improvement district to do her sweeping.

Fulton Street merchants launched another assault on Thursday against a tax on property owners that would be allocated to improve the business environment along the thoroughfare in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

Small business owners and neighborhood activists, mostly from the Clinton Hill-side of Fulton Street, delivered a letter of protest with 70 signatures against the newly formed business improvement district to Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Clinton Hill) and the city Department of Finance in the morning, warning that they’d withhold their fees from the controversial measure.

“We won’t pay,” the letter read. “This BID [business improvement district] has left us out. We want a new, democratic vote. Otherwise it’s a battle on Fulton Street.”

Shopkeepers first revolted against the business improvement district prior to its creation in December, but the rebel forces were not large enough to defeat the vote by the 200 property owners to ratify the tax. The opponents have kept up the fight, though, saying that the tax, $80 for every 20 feet of property, is a burden during the recession.

The tax will raise $300,000 per year and its proponents say the money will be spent on security, street lighting and other enhancements between Rockwell Place and Classon Avenue.

But there’s the fear among some entrepreneurs that it will accelerate gentrification and eventually drive them out of business.

James has defended the business improvement district and said that its formation now enables her to funnel city money to the area for other uses that could revitalize the commercial corridor.

Myrtle Avenue has a business improvement district, which has been credited with diversifying the stores along the strip once known as “Murder Avenue.”

The 88th Precinct played a large role in the turnaround, others say.

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

Brooklyn Building Boom $3 Billion in new residential projects

Brooklyn is "enjoying" a huge development boom across the river from Chinatown in Flatbush according to a NY Post story from 2007 "The bulk will come in the form of at least 4,422 new residential units, much of which will be spread among high-rise towers reaching 40 stories high that will soon line the avenue.

We're talking about 2,063 market-rate rentals and 1,721 luxury condos, along with another 570 apartments and 68 condos created for low- and middle-income families.

And these projects will also bring 645,000 square feet of new retail and another 190,000 square feet of office space." NY Post By RICH CALDER June 25, 2007.

The NYC Dept. of Transportation would have us all believe that over four thousand new residential units in downtown Brooklyn will have no impact on traffic. Reports on the affects of closure on Park Row in Chinatown, and the presentations for the Chatham Square redesign have ignored the building boom in Brooklyn just over the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. Ironically the same firm Phillip Habib and Assoc. is responsible for both Flatbush Ave. projects in Brooklyn AND Park Row and Chatham Square's projects in Manhattan's Chinatown.
CCRC wants to know why the City, DOT, and Habib have conspired to ignore all the traffic data regarding these new developments and their impact on the impending construction planned for Chatham Square.

What we DO know from Community Board 3's paid traffic engineer, Brian Ketchum is that traffic WILL back up on Flatbush Ave. (particularly at Tillary) as a result of years of construction at Chatham Square and the overlapping refurb. of the Brooklyn Bridge.

We've also learned that no community boards in Brooklyn even know about the construction slated to begin in July in Chinatown, they're not going to know what hit them once the traffic backs up.

We intend to inform them.

Brooklyn Bridge refurb. NOT linked to Chatham Square Redo

Finally, the community board should not accept the inherent linkage proposed between this [Chatham Square reconstruction] and the Brooklyn Bridge project. In other words, we should not hold this community, in a way, hostage, so that the Brooklyn Bridge work can be completed. (APPLAUSE) That (Brooklyn Bridge project) should not drive this decision making process [to start the Chatham Square reconstruction].

Councilman Alan J. Gerson