Councilmember Recchia vows to create a "mechanism" to allow BID opponents to be on the Chinatown BID Board

Councilmember Robert Jackson of district 7, challenges the phrase "not legitimately" used by BID opponent and representative of the Coalition Against the Chinatown BID, and Vice President of the Property Tax Payers Copr.,  in reference to the Chinatown BID creation

Chinatown Partnership B.I.D. Steering Committee motto: "Let Us Help Ourselves"

Property Owners in the BID district must fill out this form to object to the Chinatown BID

Unfortunately there exist many obstacles for property owners and businesses who do not wish to be in a Chinatown Business Improvement District.

There is a deadline for the objection forms to be filed which is

June 25th 2011.

Under city law those wishing to object to the formation of a Business Improvement District must first obtain an official form at the City Clerk's office. Then property owners must get the signature notorized and then provide a copy of the deed for EACH property they own.

Although only property owner's forms are counted in the official vote, businesses are also welcome to object as this makes a clear statement to the City Council that indeed Chinatown businesses do not want a BID in their neighborhood.

If 51% or more of the properties in the BID district object to the BID, it will not happen.

Previous to this posting there is no convenient way for property and business owners to obtain the only official objection form recognized by the City Clerk of New York.

Well, with the help of volunteers we've gotten the proper form and made it available for anyone wishing to object to the Chinatown BID can PRINT OR DOWNLOAD (down arrow) either the English or Chinese form BELOW by clicking the button to the far right below the form

NOTE: THE CHINESE VERSION IS FOR REFERENCE ONLY!!!!

Only the ENGLISH VERSION may be submitted to the City Clerk's office.

This is the form translated in to Chinese, which also didn't exist until volunteers in the community took it upon themselves to do.

THIS IS FOR REFERENCE ONLY !!! Only the ENGLISH version of this will be accepted by the City Clerk !!!! DO NOT SEND IN THE CHINESE VERSION - ONLY THE ENGLISH ONE IS ACCEPTED.

for more information Jan Lee: 917-710-7503

Stephen Cheung (Chinese and English language) 718- 961-1272

Click here to hear an Audio Podcast of David Eng speaking about a Chinatown Business Improvement District

"They want to TAX us INTO prosperity - it doesn't work that way, it never has, it never will" - David Eng

Third generation business and property owner David Eng spoke at Community Board 3's public session to share his thoughts on the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp.'s proposal for a Business Improvement District for Chinatown

Comm. Board 3 Full Board 11/23/10 hears community critiques of Chinatown Partnership - B.I.D. proposal

CLICK HERE to hear an audio podcast of lower east side native, tour guide and activist Rob Hollander regarding the proposal of a Chinatown BID. Hollander feels the CPLDC has "done an end run past the Chinatown Working Group".

On November 23rd 2010 Community Board 3 heard a presentation by the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp.. The presentation was meant to highlight the reasons why Chinatown needs a Business Improvement District (BID) and why "The Partnership" (CPLDC's BID Steering Committee) should ultimately be responsible for the formation of a BID.

The public session had several speakers voicing their opinions about why Chinatown should not have a BID.

The CPLDC's presentation was not followed a vote. The next presentation by the CPLDC will be before the Economic Development Committees of both Community Boards 2 (Dec. 9th) and 3 (in a month from now). The CB3 economic development committee will then vote on whether the BID issue will go forward to the full Community Board for a final vote whether or not to endorse the Chinatown BID. In 2002 Community Board 3 voted to DENY approval for a Chinatown BID, with many of the same BID supporters of 2002 on The Chinatown Partnership LDC such as Bill Lam of Longines Property development and Asian Americans For Equality. The reasons for denying a BID were "deception and obfuscation".

Resistance to a Chinatown B.I.D. Website

 Coalition Against the Chinatown B.I.D. launches a website www.nochinatownbid.org

A comment to this posting worthy of response:
"it's unfortunate they see this as a waste of money, keeping their own neighborhood clean. at the end of the day, the community is your own. yes, it cost 1000. but do they know what kind of imagine chinatown gives off to people outside of nyc and new yorkers themselves? i always dread going there, i used to go there for dentist, doctors, haircuts, dining out. now? forget about it. it's also the last place i'd bring my friends to. i don't see how investing this 1,000 a year can do them harm. " Nana


In response to "Nana" :
Firstly ,on the subject of "waste", let's define what has been wasted so far by the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp. whose #1 goal was to clean Chinatown.
Exec. Dir. Salary for 3.5 years : $ 458,000.00 and counting  - the majority of people in Chinatown feel THAT was a waste of 9/11 grant money from the LMDC, since CPLDC has only 3 staff members, and a cleaning crew of 10. 


Nana , If you are disappointed by the image Chinatown has, then you are as disappointed as we are with the poor quality of cleaning provided by "Block by Block" the FOR-profit company that CPLDC hired to clean Chinatown, portions of SoHo, Tribeca, and L.E.S. 
Since you "dread" Chinatown, then please continue to avoid our neighborhood, with your attitude, we don't miss you.


If you don't wish to bring your friends to Chinatown, then you clearly would agree that $7.2 million dollars for a street cleaning program and promotional campaign controlled by CPLDC has FAILED miserably.


Given that failure of the CPLDC, the progenitor of the Business improvement District, why would $1000.00 seem like a "good idea" to you?  As a matter of fact, where did you get this fixed amount of $1000.00 anyway? hhhmmm.....


Did you know a tax deductible donation to a local non-profit (NON-profit!) of only $30.00 per building per month would take care of cleaning both the streets and sidewalks of Chinatown as it does for SoHo? WITHOUT A Business Improvement District controlled by the Chinatown Partnership's Board of Directors.  
$30.00 per building, per month is fixed, which is different from a B.I.D. - which has the potential to increase, and increase, and increase its tax assessment.  
something tells us you didn't actually READ www.nochinatownbid.org   

Chinatown Business Improvement District Plans Continue to be met With Resistence

From the Wall Street Journal

By JOSEPH DE AVILA

Chinatown has never had a reputation for being a tidy neighborhood. Next year, it might get even worse.

A $5.4 million grant that paid for extra street cleaning and garbage pickup is about to run out, reviving a call to bring a business improvement district to the neighborhood.

View Full Image

Mustafah Abdulaziz for The Wall Street Journal

Boxes from fruit stands line the curb along Forsyth Street in Chinatown on Friday. Chinatown's street cleanliness grade has improved since 2001, but is still below the city average.

For four years, the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp., a nonprofit business group, has relied on a grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a city-state agency that handed out federal aid after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

"We don't know what we will do at the beginning of next year," Mr. Chen said.

Chinatown's street cleanliness grade issued by the mayor's Office of Operations has improved from 64.6% in 2001 to 88.5% in 2009, an improvement but still below the city average of 95.8%.

The Chinatown Partnership is taking the opportunity to renew a campaign to organize the neighborhood into a business improvement district to pay for the extra cleanup. But property owners have twice rejected BIDS since the 1990s, and opposition remains intense.

It takes a majority vote of property owners to create a BID, a public-private partnership where members pay assessment fees, said Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership. He said a BID can take decades to pass, pointing to districts in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and Flushing, Queens. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been a strong champion of the districts; there are 64 now and a dozen more are proposed.

Some Chinatown businesses say that becoming a BID is not the right answer. They say it increases costs on small businesses and gives to strong a voice to absentee landlords. They also say that the reason for the problem is decades of neglect by the city.

Fees in Chinatown could run up to $5,000 annually per property—even if the property owners don't want to participate.

"A lot of those costs are going to be pushed down to the low-income small businesses," said Josephine Lee, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and Lower East Side.

Small businesses have been decimated in Chinatown since 9/11, said Paul Lee, a lifelong resident in Chinatown. An assessment would only exacerbate the situation, he said. "Ask any one of these small businesses if they are willing to pay an extra $1,000 a year," Mr. Lee said.

Jan Lee, a Chinatown resident whose family has owned property there since the 1920s, has been at the forefront of the opposition to a BID. "It is the most undemocratic, quasi-government agency every formed," he said.

Absentee property owners who would have a voice in running the BID don't know the concerns of the community, said Jan Lee, director of the Civic Center Residents Coalition.

Despite the criticisms, other property owners are supporting the proposed BID. They say that with the neighborhood being such a high-traffic, tourist area, cleanliness will always need extra attention.

"I think people forget what it was like" before the extra cleanup, said Michael Salzhauer of Benjamin Partners, which owns two commercial buildings in Chinatown. He has been doing business in Chinatown for about 25 years. "Prior to that, cleaning it was another obstacle to people enjoying it."

Write to Joseph De Avila at joseph.deavila@wsj.com
Comment:

Sean Sweeney said...

It's bad enough the directors of the BID are pursuing this in Chinatown proper.
But they are now extending it to parts of SoHo and TriBeCa, despite protests from SoHo property owners.

Mr. Chen claims that his Clean Chinatown campaign got $7.25 million from LMDC post 9/11 to clean up areas in SoHo. Yet by his own admission, his group abrogated that responsibility and left the SoHo Partnership - a charity - to do their dirty work, while Chen's group pocketed the taxpayers' money that was intended to clean SoHo!

Is this the shenanigans that we will expect from his BID?

The BID claims that it includes Little Italy, yet their own map belies this assertion: three blocks of Mulbery Street have been removed at the insistence of the restaurant owners.

I've never seem a BID face such opposition. This duck is dead in the water.