Voting by property owners in the projected Old Town Business Improvement Service District (BISD) has been completed with the results indicating that the proposal by the Old Town Business Association failed to meet the current threshold set by City Council to move forward.
Ballots were sent to the 479 property owners in the proposed district. Of those, 247 ballots were returned representing over 50 percent of the eligible properties.
The official result: 162 voted no and 85 voted yes, indicating support of 34 percent among affected property owners that returned a ballot.
This effort is the third attempt to establish a BID in Old Town. Deadlines for responses from previous mailings to business owners were eliminated by City Council, who unanimously voted to modify the voting requirements during a May 28 legislative meeting.
Previously, 60 percent of property owners were needed to vote in the affirmative to move the proposal forward. Following Council’s modification, property owners who did not vote were removed from the final tally, revising the threshold to 60 percent approval of total votes cast. Only 34 percent of property owners supported the creation of the BISD.
“The defeat of the BID proposal demonstrates this was an ill-conceived and incompetently structured proposal and it was viewed as wrong by nearly 2/3rd of the affected businesses,” said Anti-BID Coalition representative Boyd Walker in an email with the voting results. “The advocates misled the city council and city staff with their claims of support.”
The BID proposal requires a $0.10 service tax added onto the real property tax of properties in the BISD zone. Most of these properties are located along the King Street corridor and waterfront. Current real property taxes are $1.11 per $100 of assessed value.
The consulting firm Municap was hired by the City of Alexandria to spearhead the latest BID initiative, with the firm tallying the latest round of voting.
“The City Council should seriously reconsider spending taxpayer money to help fund proposals by private individuals,” Boyd said. “Over $100,000 was spent on this proposal. This is the same group that did the economic study for the failed Arena project.”
The city manager’s office did not return a request for comment
The BID was envisioned to provide funding and administration for events and marketing, an ambassador program, business support programs and advocacy.
Representatives from the Old Town Business Association indicated that they will be responding to the voting results at a later date. The organization’s website has information on the proposed BISD along with governance information, sample projects and projected costs. www.oldtownbusinessBISD.com