Business leaders in Squamish are ready to take another shot at creating a business improvement area (BIA) downtown - over the objections of some long-standing businesses.
Based on the results of a 2004 survey, the Community Futures Development Corporation of Howe Sound (CFDCHS) is pressing ahead in leading the BIA initiative. The federal Western Economic Diversification (WED) is funding the project.
In a BIA, the business and property owners in a defined area pool financial resources and then spend that money in ways that turn the area into a more desirable place for people to shop and do business.
BIA funds are collected by local government in an addition to local property taxes. The improvement portion of the collection is all turned over to the BIA for reinvestment in the designated zone.
This will be the second attempt within a decade to launch a BIA. The first attempt in the early part of the 1990s failed to materialize as merchants didn't support the concept.
"We got some money to move forward with downtown revitalization and what people have told us is they want a formalized group of stakeholders to lead the downtown revitalization initiative," Dan McRae of CFDCHS said after WED announced it will help fund revitalization initiatives proposed for Squamish and Pemberton.
Now that the funding is in place McRae wants stakeholders to become informed and learn what opportunities the BIA can deliver. He also wants those who will be involved in the initiative to learn how much the initiative will cost.
All the work done so far in moving toward revitalizing downtown was called Phase One of the initiative.
Phase Two is now under way and, according to McRae, research has to be done to set a budget, define the area boundaries and determine the municipal process to enact a BIA.
But even before that work is completed, some downtown merchants are speaking out against a BIA."I'm not willing to pay for a BIA, period," said Nancy McCartney of Garibaldi Graphics. "End of story."
Doug McCartney at the Home Hardware store was opposed to the attempt to create a BIA in the early 1990s and he remains opposed to the concept.
"It ups your expenses significantly," he said. "The last time they were going to do this in downtown Squamish we had the biggest downtown merchants meeting ever and everyone voted no."
He noted that his main competition will have an advantage over his store because his competitor won't be paying BIA fees.
"I'm absolutely against it, period," said McCartney.
"The cost of operating a business downtown is approximately 400 per cent higher than anywhere else I've seen, making it unaffordable and unprofitable to run a business in downtown Squamish," said Nes Kotyk of Kotyk Electronics and Squamish Vitamin Centre.
The downtown merchants' association supported the CFDCHS initiatives toward revitalization.
The association leader, Mohammad Afsar, was not available for comment this week.
