by KATIE WORRALL

Copies of the proposed Business Improvement District Plan have been distributed to owners of 207 commercially zoned properties in Chestnut Hill. The property owners will be asked to offer nominees for the Business Improvement District board.

The plan, which numbers nine pages plus a 12-page appendix, gives the Chestnut Hill Business Association’s argument as to why a BID — or Neighborhood Improvement District, as it is called under state law — should be enacted in Chestnut Hill.

In order for the BID to be formed, 51 percent of the commercial property owners must approve the plan, the district city councilperson must introduce legislation and the mayor must sign a bill forming the district. If formed, a 12 percent surcharge would be added to real estate bills of commercial property owners along Germantown Avenue between Rex Avenue and Cresheim Valley Drive, Bethlehem Pike and on certain unit blocks of side streets.

The plan was written by Larry Houstoun, a consultant with the Cranbury, N.J.-based Atlantic Group, and Suzanne Biemiller, executive director of the Business Association, based upon information garnered from a retreat for business and property owners two years ago as well as more recent shoppers’ surveys, public meetings and meetings of the BID steering committee.

The plan states that the Business Association learned at the retreat and from the task force that ”there are important economic opportunities and issues that require resolution in the Chestnut Hill commercial corridor.”

For example, the plan says the decrease in usage of the Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation lots is due to the lack of anchor stores that draw customers; persistent vacancies within the shopping district; decline in the use of banks by customers who now favor electronic or ATM transfers; increase in the number of financial institutions replacing retail stores; changing shopping patterns; increased competition with other shopping areas where there are “category killers” (chain stores) and the Internet; and the changes in the retail landscape with category consolidation that has rendered many main street independents unable to compete in general merchandise categories.

Potential projects of the estimated $239,000 brought in by assessments and from other public and private sources were divided into three groups: strengthening the local economy; security, parking and circulation, and physical appearance. Strengthening local economy includes instituting measures that other BIDs have used to attract businesses that draw customers from greater distances, penetrating the local market more completely and reinforcing the goal of drawing shoppers will visit more than one business during the same trip. It would include employing a staff person or consultant responsible for business attraction.

Projects in the category of “security, parking and circulation” include helping the Parking Foundation with deferred maintenance costs and building a stronger relationship with the Philadelphia Police Department. Within the area of physical appearance, improved lighting, sidewalk and parking lot cleaning and additional trees are being considered.

(Biemiller said that the Business Association is working with the Chestnut Hill Historical Society and the Chestnut Hill Community Association’s aesthetics committee and the Philadelphia Streets Department to replace street lights that were installed in 1978 and to extend the lights down Bethlehem Pike.)

The steering committee recommends that the executive director of the Business Association also work as the executive director of the BID organization. The BID budget includes funds for a program manager to oversee the day-to-day aspects of projects.

Biemiller said at a recent steering committee meeting that because this is an election year, any bill introduced to City Council, but not passed before the City Council session ends December 11, dies. Therefore, the legislation to establish the Business Improvement District will not be introduced until January. She said that there are two ways for the BID proposal to be approved by property owners: the total number of properties owned and the total assessment of each property.

After the legislation is introduced in City Council, the city will send a mailing to property owners that includes notice of the first hearing, resolution bill and business plan; a hearing by the rules committee on the preliminary business plan, a second hearing by the rules committee on the final business plan, and then a 45-day objection period before a second reading and final passage of the bill. Biemiller told the Local that the commercial property owners will not have an opportunity to vote on the BID plan but will have a chance to make an objection to the city in writing during the 45-day period (which she believes will be in March 2004). If the city does not receive a response from a property owner during the objection period, support for the proposal will be assumed.

Tom Ivory, president of the Business Association, said that Pennsylvania law requires that the Business Improvement District have nine voting members. The nine voting members are two Business Association members, one of whom is not a property owner; one assessed property owner selected by the Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation; two owners of commercial property worth less than one million dollars; and two owners of commercial property worth more than one million. Two of these board members must be from below Southampton Avenue and two must be above Southampton Avenue, Ivory said. (Some of the nominees may overlap categories, Biemiller said, to explain why this does not add up to nine.)

Non-voting members would include a representative of the City of Philadelphia, the Business Association executive director, the Chestnut Hill Community Association president, the Garden District Fund president and a representative of an institution.

Members of the BID steering committee are Pat Gallagher, Eichler & Moffly; Russell Goudy, Kilian Hardware; Tom Ivory, Baker Street Bread; Sanjiv Jain, Chestnut Hill Real Estate; Jim Jordan, SEPTA Security; Chris Lane, Philadelphia Print Shop; John Levitties, John Alexander Ltd.; Maxine Maddox Dornemann, CHCA; Anne McNally, McNally’s; Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller; Marilyn Monaco, Kelly & Monaco; A. J. O’Brien, Fleet Bank; Bruce Robertson Jr., Robertson Florist; Paul Roller, Roller’s Restaurant; Dottie Sheffield, Chestnut Hill Garden District Fund; Richard Snowden, Bowman Properties, Ltd.; and Steve Vaughn, chief of staff to Councilwoman Miller. Copies of the plan are available at the CHBA office, 8426 Germantown Ave.