Written by John Boyle, Asheville Watchdog.
First of all, please ditch the polo shirts.
After listening to a few hours of citizen input about the Business Improvement District for downtown Asheville, this was one of the recurring themes I gleaned: Some people in Asheville really dislike the idea of BID “ambassadors” walking around downtown sporting polo shirts.
OK, their concerns go beyond the seemingly benign sporty attire, but it still delivered a clear message: This BID, like the one that never got funded a decade ago, could face a real uphill battle in Asheville. More than 60 people spoke at the April 23 City Council meeting, and the solid majority was opposed, although multiple business owners and residents also spoke in favor of the proposal.
Then, on April 26 the Asheville Downtown Commission split its vote, 4-4, on a recommendation to City Council in support of the measure, meaning no recommendation in favor will go forward. Commission members also had concerns about the BID proposal and some of its details.
I wrote about the idea of a BID as part of Asheville Watchdog’s “Down Town” series last year. I described a BID as a designated area in the central business district in which property owners agreed to pay a special tax in return for enhanced services, like extra security and sanitation.
Some criticisms are legitimate, others a little bit out there.
Allow me to summarize the criticism from the April 23 public hearing:
Apparently a Business Improvement District downtown will force out homeless people and put the kibosh on protests of any kind, spawn more gentrification and increase homelessness because rents will go up, allow an unelected body to take control of public spaces, empower plutocrats to complete their takeover of downtown, impose taxation without representation, further oppress the working class, concentrate power in the hands of elite property owners, and, of course, give polo-wearing “ambassadors” free license to run roughshod over the down-and-out instead of just giving directions to meandering tourists, all under the guise of creating a “clean and safe” downtown, which we all know is simply a “dog whistle” for squashing anyone who’s different. Also, it won’t fix larger systemic problems such as homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse, low pay, and the lack of affordable housing.
Oh, and it likely will infect everyone downtown with bird flu carried by cows roaming the streets.
I made up the last one, but the rest were true. Man, people assign a lot of evil to a BID proposal.
I don’t want to make light of people’s concerns, because one theme that clearly emerged is that locals want Asheville to keep its weird charm. I want that, too. We don’t need a generic, sanitized downtown that bores us to tears.
Part of the resistance, as I see it, bloomed because the proposal comes from, or seems to anyway, The Man, in the form of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Association, which have spearheaded the BID effort. They do have a lot of support from business owners, other local groups such as the Asheville Independent Restaurant Association, and downtown property and business owners who want a better downtown.
In the estimation of these proponents, that means a safer and cleaner downtown — maybe one without needles and human waste on the sidewalks, and downtown workers who don’t worry about walking to their cars at night.
Some public speakers made it clear BID’s board should include representation not just from property owners but also from renters or downtown workers. That’s important stuff, but it’s also important to remember that ultimately the council determines who’s on the BID board.
While details about the BID still need to be worked out, City Council can easily figure those out between now and the two votes necessary to pass a BID, scheduled for May 14 and June 11. At least I think they can, and I hope they do.
What makes this BID tough to get a handle on is that some of these details cannot be worked out until the BID is approved and the request-for-proposals process starts. If the council approves a BID, the city would put out an RFP “to select a non-profit management organization, which would run the processes of creating a nominations committee, conducting a nominations process and creating a slate of the board. That slate would then be submitted to City Council for acceptance,” according to the online BID frequently asked questions page.
As proposed, the tax rate for the BID would be $.0919 per $100 of assessed value. Let’s call it a dime per $100. It’s projected to raise about $1.25 million annually.
Lots of BIDs statewide, nationwide
Let’s pause to note that BIDs have been in North Carolina since 1973, as Asheville Watchdog reported last year. (The state officially terms them “municipal service districts.”) The state has 66 BIDs in place, and some cities have multiple BIDs, according to the North Carolina Downtown Development Association.
More than 1,000 cities nationwide have BIDs.
In North Carolina, BIDs come with a lot of state rules, and first and foremost they cannot replace services that are already provided. By law, cities can’t lower their level of service “unless they face financial hardship and publicly address any changes,” according to a chamber Q&A.
Also, the City Council can change the BID, as well as the tax rate. Council has discretion about the BID board’s makeup, and council must maintain final discretion over the use of the money, City Attorney Brad Branham said at the public hearing meeting.
You can find an enormous amount of information about the operational plan for the BID here, and it’s worth noting that the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Association have met with a range of organizations, workers, business owners, and others for over a year to discuss it. A 32-member steering committee has been in place for months, and the chamber paid for a feasibility study that found that downtown Asheville was “BID-ready and should continue to move towards formation.”
If passed, the BID would get an intense review after five years, but the council can tweak it.
I suspect City Council might just do what it typically does — hear everyone out, delay the process until the next fiscal year (July 1), and then watch as the proposal dies a slow, painful death. Then a couple of years from now, or maybe another decade, after a wave of complaints, it will entertain creative ideas on how to improve safety and cleanliness downtown.
I’d say a BID, done right, could be a real boon for downtown, as it would be a more nimble body that could react to situations and needs more quickly than City Council, which, let’s be honest, would struggle to coordinate a one-car funeral.
Too harsh, you say? Well, at the April 23 meeting, scheduled well in advance, City Council had trouble deciding when the public hearing would actually start and if people would have two minutes or three to speak. The meeting room at Harrah’s Cherokee Center was already fairly full at 5 p.m., but the public hearing on the BID was scheduled for 7, so some who were already there wanted to get it over with and not wait another two or three hours.
Council decided it had to stick with the previously advertised 7 start time.
I decided to watch it later on YouTube from the comfort of my home. When I left the meeting and walked out of the building, I couldn’t help but notice Asheville’s enduring symbol of stasis across Haywood Street — the city-owned vacant property known as “The Pit of Despair.” The city has owned the site for two decades now, allegedly with an eye toward developing it or putting in a city park, but it remains a vacant eyesore. And let’s not get started on the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, which has been in need of renovation for at least as long.
This is the firepower and agility City Council brings to downtown. So yes, a BID might be the tonic it needs, I thought.
Early in the meeting, Councilmember Sage Turner pointed out that she’s been a downtown worker for decades.
“And I do think there are times in our history of downtown when downtown would have benefited from a more nimble body,” Turner said.
You don’t say!
But Turner had also said she’s not there yet on the BID and has some outstanding questions.
Councilmember Maggie Ullman said it’s clear that the city and its residents “have a really differing perspective and deep mistrust of the others that have a different perspective.” For instance, the notion of “safety” downtown has become “wildly divisive conversation in our community, which feels really sad to me.
“I think people have really different opinions of how we get toward safety, and it’s very visceral, and people have lived experiences on all sides of this,” Ullman said. “I think at the heart of a lot of these conversations I’m hearing is that there’s just really differing perspectives and deep mistrust of the others who have a different perspective.”
That’s heavy stuff for a program aimed at pressure washing sidewalks and maybe putting in some flower boxes. But I get it. Council has to listen to everyone on this one, and get it right.
“Asheville has a tendency to talk things to death’
I recently talked with Kit Cramer, president and CEO of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Zach Wallace, vice president of public policy, to gauge where they feel like things stand with the BID.
First we talked about those polo shirts.
“We can find whatever kinds of shirts folks want,” Wallace said.
“If they wanted tie-dye T-shirts, we’ll have that,” Cramer added.
I slyly recommended that the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority could probably find some really snazzy denim shirts for a bargain.
The idea of ambassadors is what partly sunk the BID a decade ago, and it’s raising concerns again. Cramer said over the past year she actually heard, at a Downtown Commission meeting no less, that some people wondered if ambassadors would carry guns. They would not, and that’s never even been on the table.
“The idea is actually to relieve the police department of calls for nuisance behaviors or issues that can be better addressed by a community paramedic,” Cramer said.
Cramer says she prefers the term “community connectors,” as that’s what they envision these people would do — connect people to information or services they need.
On the governance front, Wallace acknowledged that some uncertainty exists, but that’s because the exact form of governance can’t come before the Request for Proposals goes out.
“I think the most important part of that whole thing is that, in the end, council has the final authority,” Wallace said. “These are tax dollars and the board is working within guardrails that a future ordinance would create, and they’re advising and making this organization be nimble and respond to the things that folks want.”
Cramer and Wallace want council to feel comfortable with the proposed BID, but they’re hoping this gets done this fiscal year because it will take time to get the program up and running, and the tax dollars coming in.
“Asheville has a tendency to talk things to death,” Cramer said. “One of our guiding principles is pragmatism. In addition to transparency and collaboration and other things, but pragmatism weighs heavily on us.”
Small businesses and their employees need help, though, and they need it now, Cramer said.
Cramer and Wallace said they were told by the city not to come forward with a proposed board, because that would have to come after the RFP. Same for an exact budget. The RFP has to go forward first, then a board is named that would propose the budget.
So some of these details, by law and design, need to be unsettled for now.
That’s not a big deal. Council retains ultimate control over this whole enterprise.
They can kill the BID if it’s not working out. They can tweak it to make it better.
The whole idea is that it’s flexible and nimble. And this is a good opportunity for City Council to enable that and really do something positive.
I’d like to offer councilmembers one more suggestion, as a way to clarify their thoughts heading into the final vote meeting June 11: Hold the meeting in the Pit of Despair.
Maybe that’ll provide some inspiration.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at [email protected]. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service please visit avlwatchdog.org/donate.