The proposal to form an Old Town Business - Business Improvement Service District (BISD) along and near King Street in Old Town Alexandria may be able to move forward.
To create a BISD, the organizers need 60% of property owners in the affected area to affirmatively support it. For more than a year, the efforts have been thwarted in part by property owners who are simply not responding to inquiries about whether or not they support the BISD. With so many absentee property owners in Old Town staying quiet, the BISD has struggled to get off the ground.
That has changee, as City Council on Tuesday approved an amendment to the language that requires 60% of BISD-area property owners to affirmatively support it.
Instead, the new text allows non-responsive property to be uncounted. However, the BISD organizers would have to make one final, documented attempt at reaching those people.
The new text states:
"At least 60% of the commercial property owners in the Business Improvement Service District’s (BID) proposed area must sign the petition to show support; each applicable taxable property gets one vote. If the proponent group is unable to meet the 60% requirement due to the non-responsive applicable taxable property owners, the proponent group needs to send the petition to the non-responsive applicable taxable property owners via certified mail (or any mailing that provides the sender with a mailing receipt and verification that the mail was delivered or that a delivery attempt was made). Properties for which no response is received within 30 days of when the certified mail is sent may be excluded from the calculation for determining whether the 60% requirement has been met."
The BISD would come from the growth of Old Town Business, an association that has, for years, run events such as the Cookie Crawl and advocated for local business interests. Membership in Old Town Business is voluntary. If the BISD is approved, all properties owners in the affected area would be required to pay a non-voluntary tax (added to their regular property tax bill) for BISD operations.
"The mission of the OTB-BISD will be to improve the experience of those who work, shop, eat and play within the OTB-BISD. With decades of experience, Old Town Business is well equipped to make the transition from a volunteer-run organization serving a few to a solid, foundational organization serving the heart of Old Town."
