Map of Brooklyn ED “Zones”
One of the reasons BIDS are attractive is the added attention and care a street can get due to the formation of a small professional staff. It appears from the map that MXB offers a unique north/south connection. Comments?
A local example to monitor will be the street improvements along Fulton Street centered on Marcy Street. This is a product of about $10 million in street landscape improvements for this the Fulton Street BID and planning that goes back to 2002. The preliminary design is by M. Paul Friedberg and Partners (see EDC presentation for details here.)
Established in 1958 MPFP, LLC contributed to the city’s vest pocket park initiative under John Lindsay. It remains a well-respected landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm. Initial construction began in June 2011. See the Bed-Stuy Gateway blog to monitor or comment.
The $10M will buy:
- Newly constructed sidewalks and reconstructed curbs
- Paved amenity band along sidewalks
- Creation of new public plazas
- Addition of supplemental street lighting
- Planting of new trees
- Installation of heavy duty street furniture and trash receptacles
What is the Relevance to Malcolm X?
The Fulton/Malcolm X intersection was planned and implemented in the 1960s and fails to meet common sense pedestrian safety standards. The 1960 design sought to improve the flow north/south route traffic into and out of Bed-Stuy. While this objective was met, the urban landscape was partially “suburbanized” and fails to protect pedestrians.
The Fulton/Malcolm X intersection was planned and implemented in the 1960s. The design sought to improve the flow north/south route traffic into and out of Bed-Stuy. While this objective was met, the urban landscape was partially “suburbanized” and fails to protect pedestrians.
The 2010 “New York City Pedestrian Safety Study & Action Plan: Technical Supplement prepared by NYCDOT illustrated this area of Brooklyn as one of the more dangerous in New York City (see report).
Several projects were implemented from Flatbush to Nostrand over the last ten years. A continuation of improvements should be expected, but will require advocacy and a sense of priority.
Unique Problems
Fulton Street is a major east-west commercial corridor serving Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant. The land uses include commercial, retail and residential developments. Four bus lines utilize the corridor.
The orientation of Fulton Street in relation to the surrounding street grid creates irregular, “oblique” angles at intersections. This presents safety and operational issues for pedestrians, buses, and trucks. This alignment allowed turning vehicles to proceed through the intersection at speeds that were incompatible with the high pedestrian activity and the residential and commercial land uses. Source: “Safe Streets NYC” April 2006
The Bids and Zones Option
The zoning change projects Malcolm X to become a major retail convenience street in the future by offering the C2 R6A contextual zone (more here). Because of this the idea of using the Business Improvement District (BID) option is an option to evaluate.
The Central Issue in 2011
In 2010, the city collected $80.7 million on behalf of BIDs. Under this option, the city would levy a 1.0 percent fee for the collection and distribution of BID charges by the Department of Finance, resulting in about $800,000 in revenue.
New York City has 64 Business Improvement Districts (BIDs)—organizations of property and business owners which provide services (primarily sanitation, security, and marketing) in defined commercial districts.
They receive public and private financing. The majority of revenues (78.6 percent in 2009) comes from added assessments levied on property owners in the districts and often passed on to tenants. This assessment is billed and collected by the Department of Finance, which disburses funds to the District Management Associations, which in turn deliver the services. (The city also provides some additional services such as assistance forming BIDs, and liaison and reporting services from the Department of Small Business Services.) The city does not currently charge or collect any fee for providing this administrative service.
BID assessments vary greatly, so that the fee would range from about $500 for a small BID in Queens to more than $100,000 for the large BIDs in midtown Manhattan.
Source: Independent Budget Office Budget Options 2010