Uptown Broadway BID: Business Improvement District Feasibility Study Convened by Community League of the Heights Report and prepared by Warnke Community Consulting (April 2005) 

The work reported here builds on the recommendations in the January 2005 Initiatives Study by CLOTH.  Business Improvement Districts are entitled by city and statute to use a property tax increment to fund local services.  Prior to the mid80’s the increment could also secure long-term debt for major capital improvements.  Today, a BID is a cash and carry operation dedicated to the provision of basic services that benefit individual businesses. 

The report calls for the formation of a BID in three Broadway areas.  The overall area focuses on Broadway from 135^th to 171^st Street with a primary interest in 135^th to 145^th: 157^th to 164^th and. 164^th to 171^st.  Continued merchant outreach and discussions with NYC Department of Small Business Services to develop each of these areas as offers distinctive commercial centers is recommended. A BID is recommended for development.  The area of analysis focuses on Broadway from 135^th to 171^st Street with a primary interest in three areas of primary interest: 135^th to 145^th: 157^th to 164^th and. 164^th to 171^st in that each of these areas offer distinctive physical areas and uses for continued outreach and discussion with NYC Department of Small Business Services. 

Since the passage of the street cleaning regulations that affect individual property and business owners, the rate of complaints about fines from the department of sanitation has contributed to the willingness of both business and property owners to form a BID.  It is a formal method for assembling the necessary funds from 100% of the property owners.  It is a business model that produces a modest level of staff resource.  This resource will promote clean streets; provide a source of local employment and a generally improved business district image.  All BIDS confront different issues but most include organized marketing campaigns, participation in community events and a quality of business stewardship that makes even the smallest of convenience market shopping districts regionally competitive for a select group of retail goods or services.

The Community League of the Heights received a Strategic Neighborhoods Initiative grant from the Neighborhood Opportunities Fund established by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the United Way of New York City.  This resource was used to initiate an planning process that produced the Heights Planning Initiative.  This resource instrumental in the development of the district wide study subsequently conducted by the City College Architecture Center and in the production of this feasibility study for a BID.

This document is comprised of a detailed community public opinion survey, a series of interviews with residents, leaders, managers, and organizers of BIDs in NYC, a detailed survey of businesses, and a complementary Land Use and Building Condition Study. 

In general, a BID is best established when a critical number of existing businesses and property owners are participating on a voluntary basis with a modest level of organization and leadership development including an annual membership fee.  Once established the objective is to meet a critical participation threshold, once accomplished it is a relatively simple step to prepare the legal petitions needed to secure 100% participation of all district property owners and businesses.  The direct route “why don’t you sign this so we can increase your operating costs by raising your property tax” approach has never worked.  The report is composed of a neighborhood assessment and local economic analysis focused on retail needs developed through public opinion and a survey of business owners, partners or managers with a focus on the conditions for conducting business as reflected by public services and quality of life indicators.  Based on public services in sanitation and security, overall quality of life issues associated with drug use, street amenities (trees, lighting, and pavement).

Heights Planning Initiative (January 2005) for the Community League of the Heights (CLOTH)

Warnke Community Consulting prepared a Public Opinion Report and the Enterprise Foundation produced a series of maps reflecting a physical survey.  Completed in January 2005, The Heights Planning Initiative Report was designed to survey the feelings and opinions residents and its leaders and to assess existing physical conditions utilizing a physical land use and building condition survey instrument designed and developed by the Enterprise Foundation.

The study identified and recommended priority action leading to the rehabilitation of several small buildings in the community.  The CB12 Neighborhood Planning and Land Use Study by the City College Architecture Center updated this assessment, finding very few remaining privately owned vacant buildings and no city-owned buildings. 

Funded through the Enterprise Foundation the physical survey utilized small hand held computers to document Building Conditions and Land Use.  The data gathered by the field survey team is included in the CCAC study for the CD12 Working Group.  The study area was river-to-river and from 155th Street to 170th Street. The data gathered produced 0,000 records to produce a field universe of  00,000 potential data entries.   The product of this work resulted in a series of mapped presentations of the community.  The Survey was composed of one-on-one interviews with 826 instruments collected for analysis.  In brief, survey reported five major areas of concern to residents. 

These were:

Public Safety

Education

Affordable Housing

Employment

Sanitation and Physical Conditions

The survey also identified six asset areas for mobilization at the community base to address concerns and solve problems.  These were: a strong sense of community and strong community-based organizations, and the presence of major institutions.  In addition, responds reported that the community was convenient to live in, it contained a rich resource of open space and with affordable, good quality housing.

Respondents recognized the transportation resource of the community, extended family relationships, and good shopping and disliked the presence of crime, noise pollution and rising housing costs coupled with weak employment opportunities.  A key question requested respondents to name the most pressing needs in the neighborhood.  The reduction of drug presence, improvements in education and public safety ranked highest, followed by a desire to see an increase in affordable housing and employment opportunities.

These “issues and visions” section of the report reviews the product of thirty two interviews with community leaders.  Diversity and density produces a strong “sense of community”.  While it is known as a Dominican area, the overall culture draws people into the community especially after the criminal behavior was addressed.  A dense population in a small area creates a sense of mutual interdependence.

The major institutions are expected to play a greater role as “good citizens” in maintaining their facilities and participating in community activities.  Convenient access to the subways, good shopping and a strong sense of significance in the community’s historical formation is prevalent in its architectural stock of pre-1947 housing.  Overall, this work celebrated new forms of optimism regarding community development opportunities as outlined by Ethan Cohen in a forward. This study was supported by CCAC who brought together leaders to review a unique urban design studio focusing on West 155th Street from the Harlem River to the Hudson.

Community Board 12-Manhattan (CB12-M) in cooperation with the NYC Department of City Planning, Harlem Community Development Corporation ("Harlem CDC") contracted with Insight Associates for the Audubon Avenue Study and substantially completed in February 2005.

In 2003, the Community Board sought help and acquired resources of Insight Associates in 2004[i].  This consultancy defined the issues and initiated recommendations in February of 2005 in a final report.  The study area is Audubon Avenue, from West 168th Street to West 184th Street.  This initiative sought to define the existing and potential loss of housing through the illegal conversion of ground-floor units to retail uses.  

The tasks underway include documenting physical conditions in the study area with photographs, maps and other materials.  Current demographic data such as household income, population, building types and uses, etc. was gathered.  Additionally, interviews of residents and business owners was be conducted and one or more community workshops has been proposed by CB 12-M to obtain public comment.  Despite the number of stores that exist on Audubon Avenue the residential zoning does not permit new retail uses.  However, zoning in Washington Heights and Inwood was last modified in 1961 when significant changes to New York City's zoning resolution were implemented citywide, some stores have are retained as continuing non-conforming uses.

Insight conducted demographic research, field documentation and surveys of residents and business owners Insight Associates then recommended five interventions:

1.       Conduct focus groups on Audubon focused on outreach regarding zoning and land use

2.       Contact business people.  Create forum, discuss needs, leases, rents

3.       Examine market demand systematically

4.       Present zoning alternatives in a workshop forum (use ranking methods)

5.       Consider zoning alternative factors: relation of Audubon to Amsterdam, new zoning overlay areas and appropriate locations.

The current objective of CB12, working in collaboration with its planning partners and other community stakeholders, is to advance the Audubon Avenue Study to a point where recommendations for action are made to the Department of City Planning or other relevant city agencies.  This is in part a “case study” on zoning changes in the district.[ii]  In addition, Article V of the Zoning Resolution of the City of New York offers added insight regarding remedies related to non-conforming uses and buildings.[iii]

The body of case law over the last century has supported the principle that zoning is not retroactive.  In other words, zoning is a tool that attempts to create a future condition.  For example, nonconforming land uses were common when the city altered zoning in 1961, but have declined overtime.  Most remaining non-conforming conditions are the result of continuing uses.

Other use groups, not anticipated by zoning develop in a community also tend to be “grandfathered” as part of the community’s social and economic life.  The conversion of manufacturing lofts to residential living in Manhattan’s Soho District is a well known case, which eventually required the formation of a special district.

Two Ongoing Problems Associated with the Audubon Case. 

First, the expansion of retail uses on the quality of life in a community in areas not anticipated by zoning requires documentation and measures.  Second,  the degree to which the ability to discover, define and address a solution at the local level (such as the loss of second floor housing) is a systemic problem defined by the power relationship between the structure of community boards the timeliness of effective action.

In brief, an area of relatively rapid change in land use represents an equivalent change in the economic fabric of the people that change it or are changed by it.  For example, between 1990 and 2000 the percentage of people spoke Spanish at home increased by about 2%, )84% to 86%).  Relatively little change.  What did change?  It was a significant growth in median income.  Is the growth of small business in a direct relationship?  Three census tracts were used to define the Audubon area.  Insight Associates determined that Median Income rose by 58% in CT261, 34% in CT269 and 32% in CT253.  

As a largely immigrant community, the promise of economic opportunity in New York City tends to be self-fulfilling.  The saying that the “economic multiplier begins with the family” is a true statement.  There in lays the central question.  Is leaving things alone a good thing?  Or, would a select set of interventions help to sufficiently accelerate this wealth creating condition sufficiently to bring about desired combinations of social and physical improvements that assure a sustainable, self-renewing and vibrant community?

Sherman Creek: Visions/Visiones (May 2005) was produced by City College Architecture Center (CCAC) for Audubon Partnership for Economic Development’s Northern Manhattan Community Revitalization Plan (NoMA). 

CCAC outlined the major urban design challenges associated with two objectives outlined by the Department of City Planning and the Economic Development Corporation.  These are expanded access to the waterfront and the conversion of existing manufacturing districts to residential.  Following a review of existing conditions, the study expresses the community’s vision of a low-rise residential community at the water’s edge with added bulk brought to 10^th Avenue.  To further aid in illustrating development options CCAC produced a large-scale model of all of Inwood in June 2006.  The blocks north of Sherman Creek Cove between Tenth Avenue, the Harlem River and 207^th Street and the University Heights Bridge define the major area of study.

Hernandez, Ramona, Rivera-Batiz Framcoso L.  Dominicans in the United States: A Socioeconomic Profile, 2000  (October 6, 2003) published by The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, Dominican Research Monographs.

The City College of New York is home to the Dominican Studies Institute, Directed by Ramona Hernandez.  This organization has established a library of studies and reports to document the experience and contributions of residents from the Dominican Republic throughout the United States. Equally important, the Institute produced this specialized study to correct in accuracies in identifying national origins over the last three decennial censuses.  This additional research altered the U.S. Census count of the Dominican population in the U.S. from 799,768 to 1,041,910 in 2000.  This is an increase of 242,142.  Of this new estimate, 695,996 were born outside of the United States. 

This report is the first major analysis of the status of Dominicans in the Unites States.  This work and the role of the Institute in furthering our understanding of the fourth largest Hispanic/Latino population in the United States is timely and critical to furthering the contributions this population makes to New York City and especially in northern Manhattan and the Bronx.

As New York City accounts for the greatest population of Dominicans in the U.S., the implications with regard to identifying national origin and first ancestry are many when working to fully understand of role of Dominican population in CD12. 

The study also outlines the differences of people from New York and those who have settled elsewhere in the United States.  The economic success resulting from the growth of second and third generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic is described in detail, with some indicates that small business development has played a key role in combining economic success with a sustainable cultural presence in the American tradition.

Examining the demographic factors such as age, family structure and immigration in relation to labor market forces in New York City comprise the core of this research.  Comparative differences in educational attainment, the median age of the population and head of household characteristics are directly related to economic gains and the percentage of families entering or escaping poverty status.

Completed in October 2005 by LandAir Project Resources Inc. and G. L. Blackstone & Associates, LLC as sub consultants for the study for the Audubon Partnership for Economic Development (APED) This study partially updates the Inwood/Washington Heights Commercial Retail Initiative, (July 1999) Prepared for Audubon Partnership for Economic Development (APED) by Urban Technical Assistance Project (UTAP).

The study area is roughly West 207^th Street and West 208^th Street (N), portions of Highbridge Park down to approximately 187^th Street and along the Harlem River Drive (S), Broadway (W) and I-97 - the Major Deegan Expressway (E).

The plan finds the “concentration of Latin culture constitutes a distinctive and underutilized asset that is waiting for the right mix of action steps to unleash the potential of the area retail economy”.  Objectives of the study were to determine market share of this area and to define a measure for estimating the potential for an increase in commercial space.

A weakness of the study is the use of radii as a proxy for trade area definitions in that Dyckman Street and Sherman Avenue was selected as the radial center.  It is in effect a hypothetical center of retail activity.  Using the quarter-mile radii, the total consumer expenditure for retail goods was $288M. 

The area’s mass transit stops were a target of major criticism leading the consultants to recommend a call for a major capital commitment from the MTA.  These are #1 line (Dyckman Street @ Nagel Avenue, West 207^th Street @ Tenth Avenue and West 215^th Street @ Tenth Avenue (1,400 per day) and two stops on the A train Dyckman Street @ Broadway (6.000 per day) and W 207^th Street @ Broadway.

The heritage plan was completed in April, 2003 by the City College Architecture Center.  It is a resource documenting the architectural and physical development history of Northern Manhattan.  The first document entitled the Northern Manhattan Heritage Plan calls for a series of initiatives designed to support the broad recognition of Northern Manhattan as a New York State Heritage Area in 2004 by the New York State Legislature through the implementation of a management plan

Designed to advance tourism this program of the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation continues to make progress toward the inclusion Northern Manhattan as a National Heritage area.  Currently there are twenty-three National Heritage Areas in United States.  Two are in New York – the Erie Canal Corridor and the Hudson River Valley.  New York States Program has defined 17 areas; two are in the New York City area – the NYC Harbor Park and the Long Island North Shore.

Prepared for Audubon Partnership for Economic Development (APED) by: Urban Technical Assistance Project (UTAP) and completed in July 1999, the project area was bounded by to the north and east by the Harlem River, Inwood Hill and Fokrt Tryon Parks to the west and by 192^nd Street to the south.

The study documented a large and growing “Latino-owned” small business economy and likened its growth to similar ethnic enclaves throughout New York.  The commercial buildings were found to be in “good condition” overall, with the need for design leadership in defining the area as a district representing a combination of neighborhood convenience and regional shopping district characteristics.  An objective was to define potential participants in the formation of a Business Improvement District (BID).

Of the total businesses located on Broadway (100) 52% were retail trade, 35% were services and 13% represented vacant locations, of the businesses located on Dyckman (153) 67% were retail trade, 26% were services and 3% comprised vacant (5 locations) or TECEG&S or FIRE.  The third shopping area on is 207^th Street (116 businesses) 68% were retail trade, 26% were services and 6% comprised vacant (7 locations).

Sanitation (services deemed satisfactory)

Streets (overall rating of good condition)

Sidewalks (about 10% Dyckman, Broadway and 207^th Street was in need of repair)

Buildings (10 were poor condition)

Storefronts (one third needed faade improvements, graffiti removal, basic cleaning)

Sidewalk Display (a positive, with only 31 locations, vendor control recommended)

Street Trees (65 trees, 0 missing; most are recently planted and immature, one in poor condition)

The study warns its readers of the growing gap between the skills of the resident workforce and the rapidly changing regional economy toward high-skill technical jobs.

Prepared for: Audubon Partnership for Economic Development (APED) and The Community League of West 159^th Street, Inc. Prepared by the Urban Technical Assistance Project (UTAP) and completed in April 1999

This effort examined existing conditions in detail.  It was initiated by the Northern Manhattan Commercial Revitalization Program sponsored through the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation (UMEZ)  The principle objective was to promote and sustain a business improvement district (BID) in the provision of a physical assessment with demographic profiles followed by commercial retail analysis.

The studies physical assessment was conducted through primary survey covering the total number and type of commercial establishments along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue from 155^th Street north to 170^th Street from river to river.  This work identified and evaluated the eight physical aspects for analysis.

Sanitation (services deemed unsatisfactory)

Streets (street reconstruction or caps identified as needed on many streets)

Sidewalks (substantial areas identified as in need of repair)

Buildings (substantial number considered in fair or poor condition)

Storefronts (most needed faade improvements, graffiti removal, basic cleaning)

Sidewalk Display (a positive, with only 6 locations, vendor control needed)

Median Strips (15 strips received favorable ratings except for sanitation service on 10)

Street Trees (145 trees, 32 missing; 195 in median strips majority in good condition)

The demographic profiles are limited to baseline 1980 and 1990 data from the U.S. Census, and while population projection data was acquired it was disclaimed as unreliable in a small, eleven census tract study area. Nevertheless the 1990 baseline data and the study’s observations of its importance, provides a basis for comparison to 2000 data. 

Endnote References