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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Matthew Bauer, President of Madison Avenue BID on BID Assessment Cap Increase and Formula Change
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5 min
Matthew Bauer, President of the Madison Avenue BID, testified before the NYC City Council Finance Committee to request approval for an increase in the BID's assessment cap and changes to its assessment formula. He provided an overview of the BID's area, its significance as a shopping destination, and the proposed changes to their funding structure.
- The BID is seeking to raise its assessment cap by 20% from $2,100,000 to $2,520,000, to be phased in starting July 2025.
- They propose changing the assessment formula to include residential square footage at a reduced rate and to assess vacant land within the district.
- Bauer emphasized the community support for these changes and the lack of objections received during their outreach process.
Matthew Bauer
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Good good morning, chair Brandon and our own council member Powers and members of the council's finance committee.
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I'm Hans Matt Bauer, and I and since 1999, I've served as the president of the Madison Avenue bid.
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The Madison Avenue bid supports, the property owners, businesses, and residents of Madison Avenue and its adjacent side streets from East 57th Street, in East Midtown North to East 86th Street on the Upper East Side.
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Our 29 block, 1.5 mile portion of Madison Avenue is known worldwide as a center for fashion, jewelry, fine
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art, and hospitality.
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Just this
Matthew Bauer
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year, Giorgio Armani, Jim Giorgio Armani, Jimmy Choo, and Michael Kors opened new flagships on Madison Avenue.
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We're also home to Ralph Lauren, Hermes, Manolo Blahnik, De Beers, Versace, Valentino, and Dolce and Gabbana, and 4 of the world's leading hotels, the Carlisle, the Marq, the Lowell, and the Surrey.
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Though we're an international shopping destination, we also serve as the main street of the Upper East Side community of our portion of the Upper East Side community.
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And, actually, about 60% of our shoppers are local.
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There's really a distinct sense of camaraderie among the businesses of, Madison Avenue.
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And since 2004, we've held monthly merchant mixers where we exchange ideas.
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And just this December 7th, we had 76 stores on Madison Avenue donating 20% of their sales to the pediatric programs at Memorial Sloan Kettering, for our 38th annual Miracle on Madison Hollow Day event.
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We're here before you today, as, Deputy Commissioner Brown mentioned, is to request approval for an increase in our assessment cap, and to change our assessment formula.
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After a substantive community outreach and a series of meetings led by our assessment working group, our board of directors ratified both of these items, on June 27th.
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We wish to raise our assessment cap 20% from 2,100,000 to 2,520,000, which would be phased in incrementally starting in July 2025.
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The last time we raised our cap was in 2017, and this fiscal year is the first time we reached the top of the cap.
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Our last assessment increase was thus 8 years ago.
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Since that time our operational costs have, gone up, which was ours that consist of our salaries and benefits for our uniformed and, unionized public safety officers and our sanitation team, which are members of the Doe Fund.
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A second, item that we have before your committee is to change the formula by which we assess property owners.
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We only have now till till now only assess residential owners $1 per year.
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We propose assessing residential square footage, but at a rate considerably reduced from our commercial assessment rate and not to exceed 9.8¢ per square foot.
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Note that bid assessments are levied from property owners, not tenants, and that virtually all of the buildings within our district are mixed use, with retail and service uses on the lower levels of the buildings and residential uses above.
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Thus, many of the same property owners assessed for the commercial space in their buildings will be assessed for the residential space as well, so there'll be a slight reduction in our commercial assessment rate.
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We also are including in our formula assessment on vacant land within our district.
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When buildings are torn down, there is a large gap of time that because the buildings are considered inactive, assessments have not been charged for these parcels.
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During this period, our existing formula would collectively charge all the other property owners in the district for those, that those fees, and now that would be shared, and those are shared.
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And under this proposed provision, our formula will only assess parcel.
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We'll be assessing parcels why they're considered vacant, and based upon the lot size.
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And, our board of directors includes 4, residents within our district, and each played a leading role in developing our assessment formula.
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They recognize how integral our services are to the quality of life in our district and how the enjoyment of their living spaces depend upon the vitality of the businesses that line the storefronts of Madison Avenue.
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We've taken short of we've taken care to make sure the residential assessment is modest.
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To illustrate this, the average, 2 bedroom apartment in Manhattan is 70 192 square feet.
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The maximum annual bid assess Mass and Ave bid assessment for the space would only be $77.71 a year.
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The assessment for a 2,000 square foot apartment, which is quite large, would be at less than $200 annually.
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Because of the strong work of the bid over the last 25 years and care of our assessment working group and creating an equitable assessment formula.
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We have not received a single objection to increasing our assessment cap, and these amendments to our district plan outreach included numerous first class mailings, public meeting at the Provost of Ohio Public Policy Institute, and the like.
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I'd like to conclude by thanking Councilmember Powers and his team, for leadership and guidance as a member of our board, as well as to the wonderful team at NAC, Department of Small Business Services, for their remarkable stewardship of the bid program.
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Special kudo kudos to Commissioner Gross, Deputy Commissioner Brown, bid executive program director Emily Edwards, senior bid information honors Michael Melamed, and we so much appreciate all they do to strengthen New York City.
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Also be glad to answer any questions you may have.
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Thanks so much.