By Ryan Packer
Approval of a Business Improvement Area on 15th Ave E is all but assured after the members of the Seattle City Council’s Community Economic Development Committee voted unanimously to approve the proposal Tuesday afternoon.
15th Avenue’s BIA is on track to becoming the eleventh in Seattle and would be the second-smallest in the city in terms of assessment, with 37 properties along the street between E Denny Way and E Mercer Street, including large property owners like Kaiser Permanente and Safeway, taxed to pay for community benefits like graffiti removal and neighborhood beautification.
Neither District 3’s Kshama Sawant nor any other committee members made remarks about the proposal before voting to approve it.
The chair of the committee, Councilmember Tammy Morales, also received unanimous approval to amend the ordinance laying out how the BIA would function, adding language that allows the BIA to work on efforts to prevent existing commercial tenants from being displaced. It also directed the BIA’s ratepayer board to include at least two members who are commercial tenants subject to triple-net leases, which can create a particularly precarious financial position for some businesses.
Several 15th Ave E business owners, including Smith owner Christopher Forcyzk, raised concerns about the proposal to raise costs on small business owners via their landlords as the city continues a slow recovery from the impacts of the pandemic.
Ross Kling, the owner of Rainbow Natural Remedies and member of the 15th Ave Merchants Association, told the committee in public comment, “Nobody wants to spend extra money, but we all recognize we want to be proactive as a community, and by proactive, it’s creating a more sophisticated organization to address what will better 15th Avenue East”, citing unanimous support on the merchants association for a proposal to create a BIA.
The ordinance should pass the full City Council this upcoming Monday and take effect starting in 2022.
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