Neighborhood Improvement Districts, or NIDs, are a way for communities to come together to support large-scale projects that require sustained effort — things like property restorations, snow removal, garbage cleanup, traffic safety initiatives or other efforts.
They’re organizations that have official recognition from local governments, and they’re not without controversy. NIDs are allowed to levy money from property owners — an issue that came to light during a recent effort to create an NID in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood.
Reporter Carmella D’Acquisto wrote about the effort in this month’s Milwaukee Magazine, and she joined Lake Effect’s Joy Powers to talk about it.
The effort to form a Riverwest NID began last summer as a collaboration between the late District 3 Alderman Jonathan Brostoff and Ruth Weill, the community engagement coordinator for Riverworks Development Corporation.
While some Riverwest residents were enthusiastic about the idea, others were concerned about potential new property tax increases to fund the proposed NID's $260,000 yearly budget — tax increases to the tune of $50-a-year per residential unit and $125-a-year per commercial unit, with a cap of $500-a-year per building.
"There was a lot of fear about this extra cost, and especially that this cost could go up year to year," she says.
Although NIDs require a critical mass of signatures — rather than referenda or neighborhood-wide consensus — a handful of heated meetings for public comment during the NID's early stages were enough to stop it in its tracks, D'Acquisto says.
"I think if they were to move forward with it — which they could without overall approval from the neighborhood — they would be fighting a really long uphill battle with some of the residents," she says.
Although a Riverwest NID seems unlikely at this point, D'Acquisto says a revived Riverwest Neighborhood Association or Riverwest Business Association might offer additional paths forward for development in Riverwest.
