Council Member Recchia warned BID about working with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. On April 28, 2011, the City Council’s Finance Committee held  a hearing on the Department of Small Business Services’ plan to create the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District for more than 400 commercial businesses in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill and  Boerum Hill neighborhoods. The BID would extend along Atlantic Avenue between Fourth Avenue to the east, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the west, and  would be located south of the MetroTech and Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn BIDs. The BID’s projected first-year budget is $240,000.

At a City Planning Commission hearing on the  plan, a representative of the BID’s steering committee testified that more than 90 percent of property owners supported the proposal. There were no speakers in opposition and the Commission unanimously approved the plan. 8 CityLand 9 (Feb. 15, 2011). (read more…)