N. Hollywood BID Launched

The North Hollywood Business Improvement District unveiled its new offices and officially launched the property-based assessment program Nov. 26. The 1,400-square-foot facility serves as the administrative office and is the base of operations for security and clean-up crews.

The BID will operate for three years when it’s subject to renewal after a vote by the Los Angeles City Council and another petition by property owners and includes properties along Lankershim Boulevard, from Burbank Street to the Ventura Freeway, and along Magnolia Boulevard, from Vineland Avenue to Tujunga Avenue, an area inside the NoHo Arts District.

Annual property assessments totaling $158,000 will fund the BID, covering 160 properties distributed among 148 owners. Additionally, the Metropolitan Transit Authority will contribute from $500,000 a year for three years, distributed from Proposition C funds as a way to mitigate impact to the neighborhood from the building of the North Hollywood Metro Red Line station.

The Community Redevelopment Agency/LA had previously funded two consulting groups to help area property owners organize. This third try funded the Urban Place Consulting Group, who secured the property owners willing to assess themselves to fund a Clean Team and Safety Ambassadors for the neighborhood.

“Timing is everything,” said Kiara Harris, CRA/LA director of communications, citing the development in the neighborhood and the growing vitality of the NoHo Arts District. “There’s so much evidence of progress.”

Rena Leddy, NoHo BID manager, said that the prior attempts involved more non-property owners and the current BID management plan, which now includes the MTA mitigation funds, comes after years of other CRA developments.

“People can see the resurgence,” she said. “They’ve started to realize this was a good thing.”

The MTA has allocated $1.5 million to North Hollywood on the condition a BID was established, Reddy said. Those funds will be spread over the three-year term of the BID. The three-year lifespan was chosen by the property owners when they established the BID management plan.

In the district itself, one business owner had a mixed opinion on the new assessment plan. Although a renter and not a property owner, attorney-at-law Dean Selimo is nonetheless “affected by the assessment,” he said.

“Overall, it’s positive,” he said. While he was discussing the program’s safety crews and clean-up efforts, a yellow T-shirted Clean Team member came down the sidewalk with his equipment, picking up litter. Later that BID employee was using a leaf blower to tidy a different block.

Nonetheless Selimo asked “Aren’t we paying taxes already for these services?”

He hasn’t seen a rent increase since the BID has been launched, but a neighbor had. When a reporter had strolled the district seeking comments on the new program four days after the NoHo BID office opened, a business owner had moments before opened a letter from his landlord informing him of an approximate $3,500 annual rent increase.

The shopkeeper said he was unaware of the BID program.

Property owner Al Siegel, proprietor of Al’s Discount Furniture