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Community
Board passes Flushing BID plan
From The World Journal
April 15, 2003
Queens Community Board 7 in Flushing passed the Flushing BID (Business
Improvement District) plan unanimously last night after a public
hearing. A second public hearing will be held by the Department
of City Planning and will be signed by the mayor if the plan is
approved by the City Council.
More than 150 residents and community board members attended the
public hearing held at Union Plaza Nursing Home last night. 24 residents
voiced their opinions about the plan and three expressed their disapproval.
Most people said the street-sweeping project by the Doe Fund, sponsored
by Destination Flushing, Inc., has shown great results in beautifying
Flushing. They believe that establishing a BID will bring more business
to Flushing.
However, Hsuan Chang, a lawyer representing the Coalition of Flushing
Businesses Against BID, Chie-yu Liu of the Busy Mall on Main Street,
and Yi-hua Fu, another Main Street business owner, expressed their
strong opposition against the BID plan.
The plan is inappropriate in a time when businesses are suffering
from an economic downturn and a tax hike, said Fu. She added that
it would be an extra burden to the business owners and that the
budget for cleaning Flushing in the plan proposed by City Councilman
John Liu, who asked for $380,000 per year, is unreasonable. Instead,
she suggested that the police crackdown on the people who litter.
Meanwhile, Liu, the owner of Busy Mall, suggested that the BID
plan should start at a smaller scale and then expand if it receives
good results. He also questioned the $380,000 budget for cleaning,
and said 120 out of the 300 business owners included in the plan
voted against the plan and that it should be put on hold until further
discussion.
Among other attendees, the mayor, the Queensborough president and
the state senator representing Flushing all sent their representatives.
Representatives from the Flushing Chinese Business Association,
Macys Department Store on Roosevelt Avenue, and other Flushing
businesses all voiced their support for the plan.
Ning-na Yu-Chien, a community board member, said she supports the
BID plan because it is the best way to improve the quality of life
in the community. But she said the administrative spending in the
plan, which is at $55,000, is too high. However, she added that
the plan is subject to re-evaluation after one year and should be
given a try.
Translated from Chinese by Larry Tung.
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