The City Council’s Finance Committee this morning scheduled a hearing on the proposal to create a Chinatown Business Improvement District, the latest step forward for the plan, which has been championed by City Councilmember Margaret Chin.
“We’re really happy that it’s finally happening,” said Kelly Magee, Chin’s communications director. “It’s something we’ve been working for for a long time.”
The May 26 hearing will take place at 10 a.m. and will be followed by a committee vote. If approved, it would move next to a full vote by the City Council, Magee said. That date has not been set.
All three downtown community boards approved the proposed BID last year, and the city’s planning commission gave it the nod in March, despite some criticism at public hearings and complaints from local merchants they would not be able to afford BID assessments.
The Community Boards approved this BID for Chinatown because of false and dubious information supplied by the Chinatown Partnership, Margaret Chin and Wellington – they stated that most of Chinatown wants this BID to happen, when in fact the opposite is true. This is proven by the fact the HIGHEST number of objections ever filed with the City Clerk against any NYC BID occurred last month. In a matter of weeks, anti-BID property owners filed an unprecedented number of Verified objections against the Chinatown BID. It would be ludicrous and political suicide for any NYC Councilmember to approve this Chinatown BID which has this record number of Verified objections filed against it.