Downtown businesses to pay higher levy to DBA

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Executive Director Amanda Gould says there’s a simple explanation.

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“The salaries have been brought in line through a compensation strategy because there were salaries under the recommended amount, but thats been offset by other savings,” she explains. “The increase specifically for the levy is to do with creating the new identity.”

The DBA will launch a new strategic plan in 2020 that seeks to rebrand the downtown, a project worth about $10,000. The DBA will also borrow ideas from a study done by the City a couple years ago.

Gould says a small part of re-envisioning downtown is dealing with the impacts had by absentee landlords.

“We had two cases this year, and it’s very difficult working with them because they generally aren’t invested in the property or the community,” says Gould. “It makes it difficult to convince them to make improvements to their businesses.”

Elsewhere in the budget, the DBA will not receive $77,750 from the provincial Business Incubator Grant like it did in 2019, and more is expected to be spent by staff on parking because of the organization’s relocation to Little Gaetz from the old train station a block away.

The DBA will continue to subsidize advertising campaigns and facade improvement projects for members of the Business Improvement Areas, a district created in 1984.