Sylvie Paillard
[email protected]
Downtown merchants will be helping to make downtown 樱桃视频more appealing, whether they like it or not.
樱桃视频council voted to dedicate a large portion of downtown 樱桃视频to a Business Improvement Area (BIA) despite a counterpetition resulting in 50 per cent of property owners opposed, and a staff recommendation to veto the proposal.
The affected area includes Loggers Lane, Cleveland Avenue and Second Avenue from Winnipeg to Westminster Street.Council deliberated over the issue at the regular Tuesday (May 2) meeting when district staff put forward a report recommending council not support the proposal.
"A BIA's success is strictly dependent on the leadership and support of its membership," states the report. "If the membership is fragmented, as indicated by the number of petitions received, there will likely be difficulty in advancing an effective BIA agenda. The 'NO' vote is saying that half of the commercial property owners in the proposed BIA do not want to contribute money and work together in an organized manner to improve business. The other important rationale for not proceeding is that the costs of doing business in Downtown 樱桃视频are on the rise in 2006. Consideration should be given to the implications of additional BIA costs to the individual merchants in a year where commercial tax rates are on the rise, as are the individual property assessments."
According to Community Charter legislation, the process to initiate the BIA must be abandoned if 50 per cent of property owners representing 50 per cent of the assessed value of properties petition against the idea. Although 50 per cent of Squamish's downtown property owners petitioned against the BIA, the total value of their assessed property equaled 38.5 per cent.
"This is an objective vote, not a subjective one," said Mayor Ian Sutherland. "We never said that staff would take the vote and put their spin on it. Business owners would be upset if we changed the goalpost after the exercise."Sutherland added that 20 per cent of the voting properties were under BC Rail's mandate and they "don't want to pay money to us."
樱桃视频Town Centre Association president Mohammad Afsar was at the meeting and told council that his members' support is "as strong as any organization could have" but that they never took a vote since the counterpetition process seemed adequate.
53 valid counterpetitions were received representing 93 parcels with a value of $20,321,800 objecting out of a possible 186 eligible parcels having a value of $52,741,825.
