A CBID for Elizabethton

For a while now, I’m sure many of you have heard discussions about a Central Business Improvement District (CBID) in downtown. The subcommittee has finally gotten to a point to begin recruiting property owners to help form a CBID for us in Elizabethton, but many still do not know exactly what it is and how it works.

Central Business Improvement Districts (CBID) works similar to a Home Owners Association works. With a Home Owners Association there is an annual fee that is paid to a board to help support and make repairs to various association amenities such as fencing, club houses, pools, tennis courts, golf courses, and possibly even roads. So too with a CBID the annual assessment is dedicated to a board of directors who pays for CBID amenities such as landscaped streets, landscaped parking lots, better pedestrian crossings, new parking lots, building façade improvements, and even the salary of a person to recruit businesses to the CBID.

The purpose of the CBID is to create a high level of service that what the city currently provides. If the board of directors wants to create a grant program to help businesses fix their buildings they can. If the board of directors wants to create pretty parking lots they can all using the funding from the property owners in the CBID.

Many cities have seen much success with the implementation of a CBID. One of the most important elements of the CBID is the board of directors. This board is created by vote from the property owners of the CBID, NOT by the City Council or any other government body. The CBID property owners elect one of their own to make up the board and decide what improvements need to be made within the CBID. This puts the property owners directly in the driver’s seat of the district rather than city officials.

With the property owners comprising board seats, they are also in the best position to decide and determine what additional services may be needed within the CBID. The board of directors would incorporate these needs into a plan that the board would fund and implement. This could be the need for additional parking areas or maybe businesses and property owners would like to have a more attractive district with flowering baskets or maybe there is a need to recruit more businesses to come downtown.

A CBID will not be the sole solution to our downtown or redevelopment projects, but it is a huge leap in the right direction. A CBID forces the property owners to be involved, which, I believe, will do more to improve our downtown than spending CBID assessment dollars. The question is, is there enough support to get this started? What other ideas can we consider to improve our downtown? Let’s talk about it!