Group of Dartmouth-area businesses seek stronger advocacy voice in new entity

A small group of businesses in Dartmouth, N.S., are banding together trying to create a Burnside Business Improvement District (BID).

With about 1,300 businesses in the area, Burnside is the largest industrial park east of Montreal.

Amy Gibson Saab is a partner at Harbinger Law, but she’s also the chair of the BID’s steering committee campaign. If the majority vote in favour of the BID, it would likely dissolve the existing Greater Burnside Business Association, which is marking its 20th anniversary.

“We’re an entirely volunteer-run organization,” Gibson Saab says. “A properly funded BID will have staff, will have access to grants and other resources from the city, from the province, and from other resources to properly fund the advocacy, but also to support businesses with reducing crime, pushing for transit, with employee recruitment.”

Shane Kennedy, the owner of Co-operators in Burnside, is one of those supporting the idea.

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“The ability to have that more formal ability to move agendas along and to really help kind of promote the park is what I see as the biggest plus here,” he says.

Voting took place Friday and closed at 4 p.m. Results won’t be tallied until the new year.

The BID would be funded through a tax; a minimum of $50 per property up to a maximum of $3,000.

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“Keeping in mind that most properties have multiple businesses operating on that property, so for many organizations, we’re looking at a few hundred dollars a year to access these supports,” Gibson Saab says. “Every dollar stays right here in Burnside to support the business owners.”

There are currently 9 BIDs in Halifax, says

Tony Mancini, the municipal councillor in the area, says “Burnside is really important to our municipality.”

“You take Burnside and downtown Halifax,” he says, “that’s the majority of our tax base.”

Some don’t see the value in the bid, Gibson Saab says, but she’s optimistic the vote will be in favour.

If it gets majority support, results will be provided to municipal councillors who will then vote on it themselves.

That’s expected to happen in the new year.