A proposal currently before Pittsburgh City Council could introduce a new way to bring neighborhood improvements to the East Carson Street business district on the city’s South Side.

Locals’ opinions of the idea are still mixed.

In May, City Councilor Bob Charland introduced a bill to create a Neighborhood Improvement District Management Association, or NIDMA, on East Carson Street. The NIDMA would use fees collected from commercial properties in the neighborhood and funnel them into various business district improvement projects. Those projects could include beautification initiatives, marketing, events, recruiting of new businesses, and more as approved by the NIDMA’s community-led board.

Residential dwellings and properties owned by not-for-profit organizations would be exempt from having to pay into the NIDMA, but all other properties included in the district’s footprint centered on East Carson Street would contribute an annual fee based on their street frontage. Two similar organizations — the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and the Oakland Business Improvement District — also exist in Pittsburgh.

“A successful business district doesn't happen by accident. It takes management,” Charland, who represents the area, told WESA on Tuesday. “It takes someone whose job it is every day to work on the issues of the street,”

A walk Monday through part of East Carson Street turned up varied opinions on the proposal. Some business owners said they are all for it; others said they’re distinctly against the idea and have pasted signs opposing it in their windows. Still others said they’re more on the fence; more than one business owner said they are unfamiliar with the proposal, despite a mailer sent by the city to area properties and businesses.

“I'm kind of neutral,” said Ramone Pierce, owner of Bonez Barber Academy on East Carson Street. He said he expects his business might have to pay additional fees to their building owner if the NIDMA was approved, but he doesn’t expect those fees to be “mind-blowing.”

“Whatever the community down here decides as a whole, I'll support it,” Pierce said. “I'm just for the improvement of South Side in general, whatever that looks like.”

Julia Maruca

/

90.5 WESA

A sign opposing the NIDMA proposal is seen in a storefront along East Carson Street on Pittsburgh's South Side.

Proponents hope for progress

Council didn’t hold a vote on the bill on Wednesday, instead choosing to hold the bill for another week to add further amendments. But larger conversations about the plan — and the South Side street’s future — have been ongoing during the past two years.

Susan Anderson, the South Side business district manager, described the NIDMA as “a homeowners’ association, but for a commercial business district” at a July 8 public hearing at City Council. Anderson was hired a year and a half ago, using one-time grant funds, and has worked on neighborhood initiatives on the South Side since then. The NIDMA would make it possible to employ her long-term, and creating such an organization was part of the plan from the beginning when the job was posted.

“For the short time that I've been here, in a year and a half, we've made headway, and it's just me,” she said to WESA. “So if we had the resources and there was a bit more help to do it, I think we would see even more progression.”

Rebecca Kasavich is part-owner of Copies at Carson, a print shop on East Carson Street. She’s vice president of the South Side Chamber of Commerce and is working with the collaborative group of Southsiders who put together the NIDMA plan.

Kasavich says South Side businesses have been looking for new ways to boost their neighborhood for some time.

“We just don't have the money to solve all of the problems, to address all the issues, and really to have East Carson Street be all that it can be,” she said.

Kasavich hopes that a NIDMA could add strategic branding and marketing to the business district. She also wants to see the association contribute to cleanup efforts, bring temporary popups into vacant storefronts when a long-term tenant isn’t available, and employ a business manager like Anderson.

“It's not looking to replace those city services that taxes already pay for,” she noted.

Don Berman, founder of the South Side Community Action Network, sees the community guidance of how the money will be spent as key to the plan’s effectiveness.

“The advisory committee [members] are basically commercial property owners and business owners. They are determining the priorities,” he said. “This is basically the business district paying for its own development and guiding its own development with people who really know about the district and care about it.”

A neighborhood debates

The public hearing last week drew varied opinions from Southsiders. Some, such as property owner Marie Rotondo Senko, who lives in Banksville, were concerned about the potential NIDMA’s fees. Some characterized the proposal as an additional tax.

“I believe this additional NID financial burden will not spark economic growth but only serve as another deterrent to buy and sell property in this district,” Senko said. “Instead of NID, let’s find other ideas for the proper use of resources that already exist.”

Others were enthusiastic about the idea. John DeMauro of Urban Tap, who chaired the East Carson Street Advisory Committee and leads the South Side Hospitality Partnership, said the NIDMA would be a way to get things done in the South Side that the city of Pittsburgh can’t get done on its own.

“The city has many priorities, and its resources are not unlimited,” DeMauro said. “If we want cleaner streets, stronger marketing, business recruitment, coordinated public safety efforts, better maintenance, and most importantly, a district that continues to compete with other business districts across the region, then we have to be willing to invest in ourselves.”

Austin Vanasdale of the Carson Street Deli told WESA on Monday that he is “on the fence” about the plan. He hopes to see more discussion about how the fees will be calculated, so that businesses like senior apartment buildings don’t pay an inordinate proportion of the fees.

“I don't personally mind paying a little extra taxes if it's gonna help the community as a whole,” Vanasdale said.

He noted, however, that communication around the plan could also be clearer. He and some other businesses at first thought the NIDMA was related to the South Side Street Fest, an initiative between Pittsburgh Public Safety and several South Side organizations that is closing down part of East Carson Street to cars on weekend evenings. (Charland noted that the NIDMA and Street Fest are completely separate.)

Residents and business owners will have another chance to comment on the plan — Charland says he plans to hold another public hearing on it. A final vote on the plan likely won’t come until after Council’s recess in August.