Business Improvement Districts All Five Boroughs

All 76 of them, with the community board and council district each one sits in

Every BID in New York City exists because the City Council passed a law creating it. A BID is a defined stretch of commercial street where property owners pay a mandatory assessment, on top of their property taxes, that funds extra sanitation, security, streetscape work, marketing and small business services inside that district. The boundaries almost never line up with a community board or a council district, which is why you can search all three here at once.

Try a name like Sunset Park or Fulton, or narrow by borough, community board and council district below. Every filter combines.

Narrow it down

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See the boundaries on a map

The map follows the filters above. Below zoom 13 each district is marked with a dot, since a BID is only a few pixels across at that scale.

How a BID gets created, and where the community board comes in

BIDs are governed by Chapter 4 of Title 25 of the New York City Administrative Code. The process is set in law and it runs through the same institutions that handle land use.

The steps

Local property owners, merchants and civic groups form a steering committee and work with the Department of Small Business Services to write a district plan: the boundaries, the services, the budget, and the formula for how the assessment is calculated.
The district plan goes first to the City Planning Commission, which forwards a copy to the City Council and to the affected community board within five days.
The community board notifies the public, may hold a public hearing, and may submit a written recommendation to the City Planning Commission within 30 days of receiving the plan.
The Commission reviews the plan and the recommendations, holds a public hearing, and prepares a report. It sends that report to the Mayor, the borough president, the City Council and the affected council members, with copies of any community board recommendation, within 60 days of the close of the board's review period.
The City Council votes a local law establishing the district. The Mayor signs it. That local law is what brings the BID into existence.

Who runs it once it exists

Day to day operations belong to a district management association, a nonprofit board. Under the Administrative Code, a majority of that board must represent property owners, and tenants of both commercial space and dwelling units must be represented as well. Four more seats are appointed: one each by the Mayor, the Comptroller, the borough president, and the council member representing the district. When a BID spans more than one council district, that fourth appointment is made by the Speaker of the City Council after consulting the council members involved.

Who pays

The assessment is levied on property inside the district, billed and collected by the city, and then passed through to the BID, which delivers the services. Many commercial leases let a landlord pass the assessment on to the tenant.

What has to go back to the Council

Amending a district plan, expanding boundaries, or raising an assessment all require returning to the City Council. A BID is not a one-time decision. It is a standing relationship between a commercial corridor and city government.

Sources: NYC Administrative Code, Title 25, Chapter 4. NYC Department of Small Business Services.

Boundaries and BID attributes: NYC Open Data, Business Improvement Districts, published by the NYC Department of Small Business Services.
Community board and City Council assignments were computed by overlaying each BID boundary on the Department of City Planning community district and council district files. A BID is listed under every district it overlaps by more than one percent of its area, largest share first.
Questions or a correction: Mike Racioppo