During a work session Oct. 29, officials from the village's business district, chamber of commerce and governing body discussed the feasibility of a BID (Business Improvement District) here in Garden City. Although BIDs can essentially help restore unattractive storefronts, fill vacancies within the district, increase sanitation collections, improve signage and enhance sidewalk sweepings, some questioned the need for such a program in a village that already does so much to cater to its business community.

Mayor Robert Lewis, Village Administrator Bob Schoelle, Village Clerk Brian Ridgway and trustees Barbara Miller, Gerard Lundquist, John Mauk, Jon Segerdahl, Peter Bee and John Watras attended the session. Roger Eltringham, secretary/treasurer of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce, Ross Mongiardo, Chamber president, Russell Matthews, executive vice president of the Albanese Development Corporation and consultants Lloyd Zuckerberg and Dan Pisark, both principals of Central Business Partners, were also on hand.

"A BID can only improve an already vibrant business community," Zuckerberg said. He added that the bulk of the BID favors marketing and façade improvements with 16.5 percent earmarked for marketing and 26 percent allotted for street and sidewalk enhancements and façade improvements. In Zuckerberg's opinion, everything is in place to move forward in Garden City. "We want to take a place that's doing well and finesse it to do better," he said.

Mauk, although admitting his support for the program has grown since his position as the new acting counsel for the Alliance for Downtown New York - created to rebuild downtown Manhattan - remains cautious for several reasons. "I know what a BID can do and how it functions. However, I have reservations about it," he said. "Would it fail to respect the proper balance that exists in the village between the business and residential sectors?" Further, Mauk said he needed assurance that instituting a BID won't be a mechanism that would essentially cater to the larger property owners.

Zuckerberg said his experience with BIDs has always been very democratic. "I don't see why that wouldn't happen here," he said. Members that hold different capacities in the village would sit on the BID board, including, typically three seats filled by municipality officials. "Representation of all sectors is essential for a successful BID," he said.

According to Ridgway, the BID board must file an annual report with the village's governing agency, which holds the power to annually approve the BID budget. "The board of trustees first needs to approve the creation of a BID before anything else takes place," Ridgway said. "A vote among the building owners will only take place once the approval by the board of trustees is received."

The district would entail Franklin Avenue and Seventh Street but does not however, include New Hyde Park Road because a BID must be contiguous. "I believe that by law, streets in a BID must be contiguous. Even, however, if the law did not require it, it would be very awkward to have a BID responsible for streets that were not contiguous, no less as far apart as New Hyde Park Road and Seventh [Street] and Franklin [Avenue]," Zuckerberg said.

Over the course of 10 months, Zuckerberg and Pisark met with village officials, researched the feasibility of instituting a BID in the village and wrote up a report, which they presented in part to the BID committee last week. Both consultants said those they met with offered unanimous support. Segerdahl however questioned how the consultants could say they received "unanimous support" when they only met with 18 of 80 property owners and six of 120 tenants in the district.

Mongiardo, BID Committee chairman, suggested Segerdahl look at it in terms of the district's square footage. "I'm not sure where Jon got those numbers from but I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong either. Assuming they're essentially correct, the 18 [property owners] represented, and again I haven't done the math but I can tell you that of all the players represented - Franklin Avenue Plaza, Albanese, the Garden City Company, Doubleday, the hotel - may have represented easily over 50 percent of the square footage."

Bee appeared concerned with what issues could arise when a BID wants to thrive even though it might not be in the best interest of the entire village. "Roosevelt Field Mall is a thriving business community but we wouldn't want to plop it in the middle of Garden City. How can we keep our finger on that balance? How do we get the BID to thrive but keep it on a leash?"

Zuckerberg admitted that at times these types of concerns are well founded and frankly, at other times, they're not. "Zoning is one way to deal with that, which is not in the BID board's power ... It doesn't promote the more powerful businesses. You'll actually find the opposite and see that the smaller businesses often have a larger voice."

Pisark added, "Typically, you'd form committees [i.e. a marketing committee] and find various people in the community to sit on these committees, which ultimately oversee the program. It's like a system of checks and balances."

He added that a BID could also help with retail recruitment and retention. "It's not always about filling vacancies; it's about helping existing retailers," he said.

The present and past boards have always been in favor of improvement; after all, millions of dollars have already been spent to revitalize what was once considered the "Fifth Avenue of Garden City." With a BID, the flow of money is assured. "If it goes through," Mongiardo said, "[the business owners] are willing to tax or assess themselves." Similarly, business owners can squash the idea with 51 percent of the vote.

More specifically, according to Mongiardo, a BID program offers taxation with representation. "If a business owner is against it and it passes, they have no choice but to pay. That's what works about it, unlike the chamber where some people join and some don't. If someone doesn't join the chamber or even if they don't pay their dues and the chamber does something good, they still benefit. It's kind of unfair in that respect. Even though a business may say they don't want this but everyone else says they do, they still have to pay for it. They're going to benefit from it anyway though..."

The "BID tax" has not yet been established, however it's often calculated, on average, per square foot, according to Mongiardo. The required payments are considered special assessments. Delinquent payments are collected in the same manner as delinquent special assessment payments. In villages, a lien attaches to the real property once the board confirms an assessment on that property. The lien continues until it's paid or canceled. However, an unpaid assessment cannot be re-levied as part of the property tax.

"The funding for a BID will come from the 'tax assessment' to support the BID of those within the BID map," Ridgway explained. "In other words, if you are within the BID boundaries, you will be taxed for the activities/improvements that the BID will supply."

Miller asked how residents within the district, particularly those living in apartments at 99 Seventh Street, would be affected. According to law, the property owner, for example, 99 Seventh Street's landlord, may place responsibility for the payment on the tenant through a clause in the lease requiring the tenant to pay all special assessments. A lease clause requiring the tenant to pay taxes would not include a payment to a BID, as an assessment is not considered a tax. In Pisark's opinion, a BID could only enhance a tenant's property values.

Do village officials have the power to dissolve a BID if years from now they no longer want it? According to Pisark and Zuckerberg, since the board ultimately must approve the enactment of the legislation to create the BID to begin with, they have the legal right to abolish it. Matthews said, "We're too worried about the BID being 'too' successful. It takes time. It's going to take several years before we see the program's results." Zuckerberg added, "BIDs are not process-oriented, they're result-oriented."

According to Mayor Lewis, the board, back in November 2000, approved a $40,000 two-phase plan. The village wanted to break that up into two pieces - $27,500 to explore the feasibility - which has been paid out to Zuckerberg and Pisark already - and the remaining $12,500 to complete the project. With Phase I completed, Phase II, according to Zuckerberg, could take 9 months to a year. Zuckerberg said he doesn't feel they could commit to the $12,500 figure because there's a lot more work involved.

The mayor then requested the consultants propose a business plan to see whether the program's intended goals are being accomplished along the way. "I'll be long gone and many members of this board will be long gone," he said. "I think there should be a yard stick or a road marker out there." Pisark suggested creating focus groups to get an idea of whether or not business owners think parking lots are cleaner, the local coffee shop is getting more business and so on.

"The chamber has kept the flame on this issue alive," Zuckerberg said, "and it can have any role it wants to have in this program ... The scenario will unfold itself." Eltringham, who believes a BID could restore the village's luster, just in a different form, concurred, saying, "I personally think a BID is the mechanism that will push us to be the best ... A BID is critical to the future of this village."

A specific procedure is set forth in the law regarding legal challenges to the establishment of a BID. Any person aggrieved by the adoption of the local law required to institute a BID could bring an Article 78 proceeding. This proceeding must be brought within 30 days of the publication of the local law or summary thereof establishing the BID. Further, the petitioner in this proceeding must post an undertaking, in the amount the Supreme Court determines. The undertaking would be used in the event that the local law is not modified and the municipality would be reimbursed for all costs and expenses incurred as a result of the proceedings. In the event that the court modifies the local law, this modification must be filed and recorded in the same manner as the local law.

Some may be wondering if a BID is really necessary since the Village of Garden City already has a Business Planning Coalition (BPC). According to Matthews, the BPC is a mayoral committee Mayor Benack and trustees appointed back in June of 1995. Charged to create a strategic plan for Franklin Avenue, the coalition made three recommendations in a report several years after its formation - streetscape beautification, the formation of a BID and parking improvements in certain lots on Franklin Avenue. "A BID is a totally different creature," Matthews said.

Because BIDs have sustainable funding systems, the formation and implementation of multi-year budgets is possible. Some say a BID's strength is that the collected funds are sure to be available years in advance, enabling multi-year contracts with vendors, even, in some cases, the ability to finance capital improvements. Currently, most BIDs are being created in small, suburban communities much like Garden City. In fact, the Village of Westbury established a BID back in the spring of 2001. Mauk suggested the board seriously consider the idea. "If we don't, Garden City may be left behind since BIDs seem to be the wave of the future."