Committee approves Atlantic Avenue BID

The City Council’s Finance Committee has unanimously approved the creation of an Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District, pushing the neighborhood between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Fourth Avenue one step closer towards the funding it needs to give local businesses a boost. A final vote on the BID plan is scheduled for June 14, and if approved, its first-year budget of $240,000 will go toward sanitation, beautification and marketing, according to the Carroll Gardens Patch. Each merchant and property owner belonging to the BID — according to Elizabeth Crowell, co-chair of the BID’s steering committee, there are 300 properties located in the proposed area — would pony up some of the funding annually and decide together how it can be best spent. “Having this BID will set the area apart as a unique commercial corridor that is going upward, and increase the value of nearby properties,” City Council member Stephen Levin testified during the committee’s public hearing. [Patch]