The City of Middlebury has begun seeking signatories for its petition to renew the Downtown Improvement District Commission (DIDC) and related taxes on local business owners for a fourth time. Every seven years, the city must send out a petition seeking consent to an additional tax on downtown businesses intended to fund improvements to the downtown area; the current agreement will expire on June 30, 2025.
The goal of the DIDC — which has been successfully renewed three times before — is to boost foot traffic and commerce in Middlebury, according to a statement from the city of Middlebury promoted to the Addison Independent.
Fred Dunnington, a former Middlebury city planner, explained the story behind the DIDC, saying the city has faced recurring problems with limited access to downtown businesses and parking.
“Traders felt there was insufficient parking, so to raise funds to build car parks, such as the Froghollow car park, which at that point had not yet been built, I proposed the idea of a rating zone, which would rate traders in city center. whose properties were deficient in parking,” Dunnington said. “The idea is that the amount of the tax is not greater than the amount that your property benefits from the improvements.”
DIDC primarily handles downtown improvements such as sidewalk maintenance, installing streetlights, adding new flags to flagpoles, and general cosmetic and minor infrastructure maintenance.
Larger infrastructure changes are usually met by funding from the state or federal government, depending on the nature of the project, according to Amey Ryan, a real estate broker with IJP Real Estate.
“There have been improvement projects that have been funded by BTrans, the state of Vermont, or the federal government, or the city of Middlebury. These larger improvement projects are inherently more infrastructure-related and are not anything that is within DIDC’s wheelhouse,” Ryan said.
She added that there are surprises in the petition that clarify how the money will be collected and what it will be spent on.
“It includes non-residential properties, so it’s mostly just commercial and business properties, and the money is collected at the same time as regular taxes are collected,” Ryan said. “DIDC includes improvements that have been made downtown, and then years ago, DIDC recognized that the work that the Better Middlebury Partnership was doing was kind of a supplement to DIDC’s mission.”
Dunnington was involved in the original proposal to amend the charter with a new ordinance that provided funds through the surtax to support improvements to the downtown area.
Since 1996, DIDC has raised nearly $30,000 each year, which was then matched with Downtown Grant funds.
Ryan also noted that DIDC’s partnership with the Better Middlebury Partnership (BMP) has contributed to the growth of public events in the city, such as the Midsummer Market, the Fall Family Weekend market that took place on October 28, next year’s annual Middlebury Car Show & Fall Festival and Very Merry Middlebury. BMP is also responsible for the Middlebury Money Program.
Dunnington also supported renewing the petition in perpetuity.
“[I] proposed the idea that the term could continue until business owners petition to remove it, which is a term, in a sense,” Dunnington said.
A continuous automatic renewal of the petition has yet to be approved by the city’s business stakeholders.
The DIDC Board meets annually to determine how funds will be used in the next fiscal year. Dunnington explained that there are usually nine board members, including the city manager. For a renewal to pass, 65 of 95 business constituents must sign the petition.
Dunnington said businesses further away from major improvement areas feel the taxes are less necessary.
“There are some people who, in the district, are further away from the park improvements or the lighting, and they don’t see that the benefits are as important and direct to them, and you know, but drawing people downtown does. increase business overall,” added Dunnington.
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The renewal meeting scheduled for Oct. 8 will seek to extend the petition for another seven years to continue improving the downtown area.