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Return of the Callowhill NID?
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Return of the Callowhill NID?
Less than a year after it was defeated by residents, the controversial Callowhill Neighborhood Improvement District appears to be rearing its head again.
A week ago, the Callowhill Neighborhood Association announced a “60 Day Pilot Cleaning Program” would be going into effect in areas “where there was strong support for the 2011 Neighborhood Improvement District.” The cleaning is apparently being funded by a grant from outgoing 1st District Councilman Frank DiCicco, who introduced legislation that would have created the NID, and is being administered by the Center City District, whose Executive Director, Paul Levy, first proposed the NID and has been a strong supporter of it.
Word of the pilot program went out ten days ago to members of the Callowhill Neighbors Association listserv, among them vocal NID opponent Lee Quillen. Quillen says that Councilman Mark Squilla, whom she contacted immediately, was initially unaware of the pilot program. He also told her, she says, that he intends to re-introduce the NID legislation. (The Councilman is on vacation and was unavailable for comment and a message left for his legislative aide wasn't immediately returned).
CCD's Levy confirms that his agency is conducting an $80,000 “demonstration program to show what maintenance can do,” which is part of a two-part contract with the city's Commerce Department – which itself recently produced a brochure giving advice for starting Business and Neighborhood Improvement Districts in Philadelphia – that also includes ongoing work by CCD to acquire the SEPTA-owned portion of the Reading Viaduct. The $80,000 for cleaning consists of $60,000 for graffiti and litter removal and $20,000 for as-yet-unspecified street improvements.
It was last April that DiCicco first introduced a bill in City Council that would have created a “Neighborhood Improvement District” in the are between Vine and Callowhill, Broad and 10th Streets, that would have imposed an extra tax on residents, to be used for neighborhood improvements.
While some residents favored the bill as a way to combat blight in the area, others saw in it the empowerment of one group of residents (represented most closely by the Callowhill Neighborhood Association) over the rest of the neighborhood. Opponents rallied and managed to defeat the NID — no small feat, considering the law as it's written places the burden of stopping the creation of a NID on those opposed, requiring the collection of a majority of residents or owners of a majority of property value to actively petition against it.
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