In 2023, the Asheville Downtown Association and Asheville Chamber of Commerce formally began the process of creating a downtown “Business Improvement District” (BID) in Asheville, North Carolina.

We, the undersigned, oppose the creation of a BID in Downtown Asheville. We have an opportunity to learn from the experiences of other US cities where BIDs have caused harm and exacerbated inequality.

• Whereas the proposed downtown BID, like a majority of BIDs, intends to hire private security (aka ambassadors) and coordinate closely with police to patrol public space, creating an environment of fear and surveillance for marginalized residents in spaces everyone has a right (and often a need) to use; and
• Whereas BIDs create an additional tax burden on top of existing municipal, county, state, and federal taxes that property owners pass on to tenants, including small businesses and residents who often struggle to make ends meet; and
• Whereas BIDs are associated with increases to housing costs, and Asheville's homeless services system lacks the capacity to meet existing needs for individuals experiencing housing instability; and
• Whereas BIDs further empower the most powerful by creating a governance structure that concentrates decision-making power in the hands of the wealthiest property owners, enabling them to shape self-interested policies to the detriment of other stakeholders, even those with token representation on the BID board; and
• Whereas BIDs contract for services with third-parties that undercut working people, and the management company currently engaged by the Chamber of Commerce, faces a lawsuit for wage theft; and
• Whereas BIDs disrupt or co-opt existing grassroots initiatives in the arts, positioning themselves as curators and event organizers, and using artists to advance narrow commercial interests, while constraining artistic freedom of expression; and
• Whereas BIDs operate without meaningful public oversight, even in instances where city officials are supposed to review BID activities, thereby creating an opportunity for corruption and self-dealing; and
• Whereas Asheville already has the unelected TDA (Tourism and Development Authority) using public tax dollars to fund private corporate interests; and
• Whereas the Asheville Downtown Association and Chamber of Commerce have not demonstrated a meaningful commitment to gathering or transparently sharing community input, excluding downtown workers, renters, and other critical voices; and
• Whereas Asheville City Council declined to fund a previous proposal for a downtown BID in 2012, following months of public discussion and opposition from independent business, workers, and residents; and
• Whereas Asheville faces entrenched problems of racial and economic segregation that real estate interests played a major role in creating, and a downtown BID does not meaningfully address, and is likely to exacerbate, problems of racial and economic inequality;

Therefore, be it resolved:

• We call on Asheville City Council to fully cease any further actions toward the creation of a downtown BID; and further,
• We call on Asheville City Council to invest instead in community-led, democratically-accountable initiatives for downtown that prioritize equity and the needs of the many, instead of the desires of the few.

_____________________________

ORGANIZATIONAL COSIGNERS

• Sow True Seed
• Asheville Food & Beverage United
• BeLoved Asheville
• The Steady Collective
• Asheville Community Bail Fund
• Asheville DSA Steering Committee

FURTHER READING

• Lift the Lid Off the BID: Transparency Concerns Surrounding Asheville's BID – Sunshine Labs (4/22/24)
• Stop the BID – The Asheville Blade (4/11/24)
• Asheville BID Hearing Supercut  – YouTube (4/24/24)
• “Business Improvement Districts” Quietly Privatize the Policing of Public Space – Truthout (10/10/21)
• Business Improvement Districts Ruin Neighborhoods – The New Republic (2/19/16)

Header photo by @photoavl, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.