Should property owners in southern Over-the-Rhine pay into a special district to fund services above and beyond what the city provides? That’s an idea one group is looking into.
The group, made up representatives from businesses and nonprofits in the area, says that the move would preserve and expand services that are vital to OTR, including street ambassadors, snow and litter removal and more. But some are concerned that it won’t represent the community as a whole.
About two-dozen residents, social service providers and business owners fought the frigid weather and huddled in Memorial Hall Jan. 29 to discuss a potential effort to create what is called a Special Improvement District for the southern part of OTR.
A volunteer working group made up of representatives from Model Group, Neyer Construction, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, Urban Sites, Mortar, the Over-the-Rhine Chamber, 4EG, Over-the-Rhine Community Council and Findlay Market is exploring the idea, which would require a vote from property owners in the area and approval by Cincinnati City Council.
Stephanie Gaither, who works for Neyer, is co-chair of the working group along with Model Group’s Bobby Maly.
One proposal for the new OTR program the working group has designed would raise about $650,000 a year to provide services to an area bounded by Central Parkway, Liberty Street and Broadway Street. The group says it would eventually like to consider expanding the district throughout OTR.
The SID, which would be governed by a nonprofit, 501(c)3 board elected by the district's property owners, would raise that money by assessing $2.03 per linear front foot a property occupies plus $1.20 per $1,000 of auditor-assessed value. About 96 percent of the money raised would go directly to providing services for the SID, Gaither says, with the rest going to administrative costs.
Linear front footage is the area that abuts public streets and alleyways. Given those numbers, the owners of a building with 200 linear feet of front footage appraised at $800,000 by the Hamilton County Auditor would pay $1,366 extra annually. The owner of a condo worth $175,000 responsible for five linear of the building's frontage would pay about $214 extra a year under those assessments.
The front footage is important for another reason — state law dictates it is how a neighborhood decides a SID should be created. Ohio Revised Code requires owners of 60 percent of the proposed SID’s front footage vote in favor of creating a district, though an alternate vote involving owners of property representing 75 percent of the assessed property value in an area can also do so.
The proposal would replace a program funded by the Cincinnati City Center Development Corporation, the Over-the-Rhine Chamber and business owners that currently spends about $250,000 a year to pay for litter and graffiti removal, streetscape improvements, snow shoveling, safety initiatives and other services, some provided by 13 paid street ambassadors. Those efforts are centered along Vine and Main Streets, with a few connecting streets also included. The groups, which have paid for those services for seven years, say they can no longer fund them.
Gaither and other supporters say the services help businesses and preserve property values in the area, and that creating an SID would expand them and give the neighborhood more say.
“Because they’ve been funding it, the services have been in a very defined area where their investment is, and they’ve had all the decision-making over what services are provided,” she said. ‘Part of what this group wanted to do, because we know now that isn’t sustainable, is put the decision-making back into the neighborhood.”
But some residents and social service providers expressed concerns that property owners would pass on their increased property tax assessments to renters, that nonprofits might be saddled with higher assessments that would put strain on their finances, that the board elected to control the SID might not be representative of the community and that state laws governing special improvement districts would give too much power to that board.
Some attendees of the Jan. 29 info session pointed out that the City of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Cincinnati Public Schools and 3CDC currently hold a large proportion of the land in the proposed SID. That means that those groups, plus a few others, could effectively vote to create an SID whether the rest of the neighborhood wanted it or not.
Gaither said those organizations hold roughly 35 percent of the front footage in the proposed district.
There are roughly 1,000 SIDs and similar Business Improvement Districts nationwide. New York City alone has 72, ranging in size from just a few blocks to entire neighborhoods, and Ohio cities like Akron, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton also have them.
The approach has garnered praise from some urbanists for the way it marshals resources outside the framework of standard municipal government, but it has also drawn ire.
A study released in August by University of California Berkley’s School of Law found that across roughly 200 BIDs in California, many used the funds collected to engage in practices that criminalized or excluded people experiencing homelessness.
“Our key finding is that BIDs exclude homeless people from public spaces in their districts through policy advocacy and policing practices,” the study reads. “BID involvement in social services is experienced by homeless people as an additional form of policing, surveillance, and harassment.”
Representatives from homeless advocacy and housing organizations had questions about those dynamics, with some saying that similar efforts downtown have led to an increase in the criminalization of those experiencing homelessness there.
Gaither said that wasn’t the group’s intention and that core values could be drawn up to prevent harassment or criminalization of those experiencing homelessness due to the SID.
Cincinnati already has one SID, which was created downtown in 1997. That district involves the city, major businesses and residents, raising about $3.2 million a year. About 65 percent of that goes to safety and cleaning initiatives, and another 20 percent to marketing and communication.
But some residents say that OTR is different than downtown — much more residential and less oriented toward businesses that benefit from the services SIDs provide. Many of the services offered by the SID may already be provided by Home Owners Associations or other groups.
“I’m looking at this and wondering what exactly you’re going to do in the SID in my area,” one attendee who owns a condo and business in OTR said. “Snow removal? I already do that. It sounds like whoever is on the board is going to have their best interest in mind. I just don’t see how that is going to help.”
Many Home Owners Association already provide snow removal, Gaither acknowledged, but HOAs could drop that service and potentially charge lower fees.
“It sounds like what we need to have is something that shows what is presently being done,” working group member Annette Wick said. “There are 13 street ambassadors on the street who are making it much safer to walk around. There are things that are being done that you don’t even notice.”
Some also balked at the idea because renters in the neighborhood would have no say in the creation of the SID, or in the election of the board that would control it. That election would also be limited to property owners.
The American Community Survey five-year estimates released in 2017 show that roughly 1,800 of the residents in the two Census tracts that make up the SID are renters, while about 870 own their properties.
“I think a concern that many of us have is that renters have no say in this,” the Homeless Coalition’s Mark Mussman said. “It will be passed on in our rent — our rent will be increased by this. What would that economic burden be for each unit? And how can you ensure that low-income renters are on the SID board?”
Gaither said the group wants the board controlling the SID to be fair and representative of the neighborhood, but acknowledged there might be downsides.
“I don’t know how this will impact renters,” she said. “I’m sure rents will increase, but there is no direct pass-through of it.”
The 11-member volunteer working group has been meeting somewhat frequently about the possible special improvement district, Gaither says, and would like to have a concrete proposal for property owners to vote on sometime in the next 12 to 18 months.
Wick presented the idea to the Over-the-Rhine Community Council in November 2018. The group had its first community engagement session Jan. 23 and plans more in the future, Wick and Gaither say.
“We’re trying to get feedback to decide whether we’re going to move forward with pursuing this and doing more communication, more education, more feedback so we can come up with a potential special improvement district, or whether there are no legs to this,” Gaither says. “Since we’re volunteers, we don’t want to spend our time on something that is not wanted by the neighborhood.”
