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Capitol Hill Business Improvement Area to expand

Screen Shot 2014-05-14 at 2.53.12 PMThe City Council’s finance and culture committee is bringing forward a plan for an approximately 10% expansion of a Capitol Hill program that funds everything from trash and graffiti clean up, to marketing and advocacy campaigns around the neighborhood’s Broadway core.

In 2013, CHS wrote here about the effort to expand the Broadway Business Improvement Area to Pike/Pine as the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce also considered a larger expansion that may eventually come back into play.

Following the committee’s approval of the plan, according to a City Hall staff memo, a public hearing on the expansion will take place in early June before final adoption of the expanded boundaries. The memo also outlines state limits on how business improvement areas are allowed to expand:

Under state law, the Council may expand the boundaries of an existing BIA provided that the projected assessment revenue from the expansion area is no greater than 10 percent of the current assessment revenue of the existing BIA.

Also notable: City Council and staff are now referring to the program as the Capitol Hill BIA, not the Broadway BIA.

Any major changes to the BIA, including expanding its budget or boundaries, require approval of member businesses. Membership fees and an assessment based on gross income — $2 for every $1,000 generated — currently provide the bulk of the program’s budget.

UPDATE: The approved plan is slated for a final vote by the full City Council on Monday, May 19th.

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calhoun
9 years ago

This is good news. God knows Pike-Pine could use a little cleaning up on a regular basis. It’s just too bad this expansion doesn’t include more of that sleazy area, but maybe it will someday.

Scott Souchock
Scott Souchock
9 years ago

Because of where my office is my business has to pay the BIA self-tax. From what I understand it goes mostly for Plantscapes along Broadway. While it’s not much money in retrospect it is a self-tax and like most taxes without any reporting out of how the monies are used. If the area expands, and even if it doesn’t, I would like the Cap Hil Chamber to public publish, on it’s website would be fine and perhaps in this blog, the monies received each quarter, how the money is spent, and how to affect how it might be spent. In short, transparency would be appreciated.

calhoun
9 years ago
Reply to  Scott Souchock

I think you mean “CleanScapes,” which is the company that cleans Broadway on a daily basis. Without this, the street would be a mess.

It’s not the Capitol Hill Chamber which employs CleanScapes…it is the Broadway Improvement Association (BIA), so that’s where your suggestion should be made. They are two separate organizations.

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[…] Reopening and expanding: The Seattle International Film Festival is slated to reopen the Egyptian Theatre toward the fall! Meanwhile, the Capitol Hill business improvement district may soon be expanding to incorporate a few more blocks. […]

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[…] off its recently approved 10% expansion, the Business Improvement Area serving Capitol Hill — City Council calls it the Capitol Hill […]

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[…] item. Earlier this year, the “business improvement area” it runs for the Broadway area was expanded by about a block but there is interest in a larger expansion — to manage services like garbage clean-up, […]