SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION
HOMEGROWN HEROES
BY RUSSELL NICHOLS
You might think of them as your friend-
ly neighborhood superheroes. They fight
crime, clean streets, paint walls and find
homes for people who have none. These
are the business owners and residents
who assemble to fill in a city’s blighted
holes, pockets that public officials typically
can’t afford to patch up.
So if the city can’t pay, where do the
funds come from?
Enter the property business improve-
ment district. This state-enabled legis-
lation, passed in 1994, makes a way for
property owners to pay an assessment
and use that revenue for services and
programs, such as security, maintenance,
signage, lighting, special events and other
amenities to reinvigorate a given area. The
August 2018 | comstocksmag.com
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