BY ALINE REYNOLDS | Most Chinatown property owners and entrepreneurs agree that Chinatown’s sidewalks need to be better maintained and that its businesses need a boost. Accomplishing that goal, however, has led to a heated debate.
The Chinatown Business Improvement District promises to be a democratically-elected entity that would oversee and finance sidewalk cleaning, business promotion, holiday decorations and other neighborhood services. Its steering committee is proposing a first-year budget of $1.3 million, 77 percent of which would be directed to sanitation services; and the rest, to holiday lighting, advocacy and administrative operations. The B.I.D. would receive an additional $1.9 million in government funds for the services.
As the proposal fastly approaches a NYC Council vote — the final requirement for its passage — it is receiving notable pushback from opponents who believe mounting annual assessment fees could lead to the eventual closure of many of the neighborhood’s beloved mom-and-pop stores.
“The businesses who provide affordable groceries and cooked meals to the working poor will be the first to flee due to rising rent as a result of the B.I.D.,” according to a July 12 letter the Coalition against the Chinatown B.I.D. sent to the City Council. “Gone will be the five-for-a-dollar dumplings, [to be] replaced by more $6.00 coffees from chain stores,” which will in turn hurt the neighborhood’s working class, the coalition said.
Since the May 26 City Council hearing, the coalition has waged an aggressive campaign against the initiative, distributing anti-B.I.D. flyers in the community and financing anti-B.I.D. advertisements in Chinese-speaking newspapers. Consequently, the group has managed to amass more than 600 objections — 562 of which were deemed valid by the City Clerk’s office — from close to 400 property owners, according to District One Councilmember Margaret Chin.
While the last-minute opposition is greater than B.I.D.s typically experience in their final stages, Chin noted, the percentages fall considerably short of the 51 percent threshold needed to overturn a B.I.D. proposal. The opposition constitutes 20.5 percent of all property owners and 19.7 percent of the assessed property value in the B.I.D.’s catchment area, generally bounded by Broome Street to the north, Allen Street to the east, White, Worth and Madison Streets to the south, and Broadway to the west.
Nearly 60 percent of those who filed objections, Chin added, did not give a reason for their opposition, leading the Councilmember and other B.I.D. proponents to believe the opponents are using intimidation tactics to garner support for their side.
“They’re spreading a lot of misinformation about the B.I.D.,” said Chin, who adamantly supports the initiative. “When you give people correct, accurate information, they understand the value of this project, and there’s overwhelming support for it,” she said, pointing out that ninety-two percent of property owners who previously cast a ballot for the B.I.D. voted in favor of it.
“The biggest problem here is, we have a very articulate opponent with no regard for the truth. It’s a very powerful enemy, and it’s very hard to combat,” said B.I.D. spokesperson Pat Smith. “If someone comes up to you and says, ‘the B.I.D. is going to raise your taxes,’ and they say, ‘sign this’… the easiest thing to do is sign it.”
Opponents who spoke to Downtown Express, however, vehemently explained their reservations about the B.I.D.
Stephen Cheung, who owns several properties on Forsythe, East Broadway and Lafayette Streets, has formed the Property Taxpayers Association in attempt to create a unified voice against the proposal. The B.I.D.’s annual assessment fee, Cheung and others said, unfairly penalizes property owners who make sure their superintendents clean their sidewalks daily.
“What they should do is enforcement… so property owners will take care of their own property, and not depend on other people to do it,” said Cheung. “The people who are so lazy and don’t take care of their property should pay the fines.”
Margarita Ng, whose family owns property on the corner of Mott and Bayard Streets, also fears the B.I.D. would impose an undue financial strain on both landlords and tenants.
Ng said her family is struggling to keep up with its mortgage payments as is, and wouldn’t be able to pass on the B.I.D.’s assessment fee to its commercial tenants that are barely able to pay their monthly rent.
“The real estate taxes keep on increasing, and they want to put a fee on top of that? That’s kind of hard to handle economically… it creates a real big burden on a lot of people here,” said Ng. “For all that money that’s already been spent, Chinatown should be squeaky clean, and we should have thousands of tourists coming in… but I’m struggling, and the [other] people down here are struggling.”
Ng was referring to the “Clean Streets” program, an initiative financed by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation that expired last month when its funding dried up.
Proponents of the B.I.D., however, argue that the financial rewards businesses and property owners would see down the line far outweigh the annual expenses. The fees themselves, they claim, are modest: close to half of the property owners in the B.I.D. territory would only pay $1 per year. Of the remaining group, approximately 74 percent of them would pay less than $1,000 per year, and 26 percent would pay between $1,000 and $5,000 per year.
The formation of a B.I.D. “is the most cost-efficient way to keep the sidewalks clean, remove graffiti and generate more activity in Chinatown,” said David Louie, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New York who owns an insurance agency on Centre Street. “For the small amount of assessment,” he said, “the return is quite good,”
Contrary to opponents’ claims, the annual assessment fee does not rise with real estate taxes, B.I.D. proponents said. The fees would only change with a majority vote from the B.I.D. board of directors and a final stamp of approval by City Council.
“It’s the single biggest lie the B.I.D. opponents have been telling. Assessments stay [the same] no matter what happens to your property taxes,” said Smith.
Also contrary to the coalition’s allegations, the B.I.D., said supporters, will help small businesses thrive by sanitizing storefronts and encouraging commercial activity in the area.
“‘B.I.D.’ stands for ‘business improvement,’ not ‘business killing.’ At the end of the day, this is a half-a-century-old, time-proven tool and platform that thousands of communities have adopted,” said Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, a community organization assisting in the B.I.D.’s formation.
Chen continued, “The time has come to choose whether we want darkness and the pre-cleaning old days of 17 million pounds of refuse, or to go forth by uniting forces and joining hands to claim the close-to $2 million in capital funding for lighting and wayfinding.”
Philip Lam, who owns property along Market Street, said his children refuse to dine in Chinatown because of its filthiness. The neighborhood, he said, is in dire need of cleaning.
“When you make the place clean, my kids will go to the store and buy candy,” said Lam. “And, in a few years, when the World Trade Center is finished, millions of visitors will start to go there. With the B.I.D., there will be signs and other wayfinding that can bring tourists to Chinatown.”
Building superintendents can only do so much, Louie said, countering Cheung’s claims. They might keep their storefronts clean, but they don’t empty out the street trash cans or attract tourists to Chinatown.
“If you have tourists walking out of Chinatown saying, ‘it smells, it’s dirty,’ that will drive out small businesses,” said Louie.
The City Council could vote on the Chinatown B.I.D. proposal as early as July 28.
