Reading City Council unanimously backs Downtown Improvement District

In a unanimous vote Monday night, Reading City Council supported the five-year extension of the Reading Downtown Improvement District – a hot topic that hasn’t ended because downtown commercial property owners have yet to decide its fate.

That decision on a potential extension of the contract will be made after close of business Dec. 7, the last day that the 551 property owners in the district can file a vote against the contract extension. Owners who do not vote are assumed to be in support of the extension.

The Reading Downtown Improvement District was established in 1995 in response to employees’ and business owners’ requests for a cleaner, safer downtown. Through a special assessment, levied on all commercial properties on the downtown district, services are provided to property owners, including outside cleaning, security and marketing.

“I think city council sees the value of services DID provides for the downtown,” Reading city clerk Linda Kelleher said this morning. “We would never get the kind of service if the city would do it themselves.”

The DID will not raise its rates with the new contract, despite initial efforts in August to propose an assessment rate increase of 12.03 percent. But a reduction in expenses and increased funding from the city led to the DID board’s unanimous decision to eliminate the increase, keeping the assessment at 4.754 mills.

Source: LVB