East Liberty stakeholders yesterday presented City Council with a final plan to establish a fund for neighborhood improvements that will assess 304 property owners to pay for beefed-up cleaning and security.

Approval would establish a Neighborhood Improvement District in two sections of East Liberty. The first is roughly centered around Penn Circle. The second includes various properties circling the first and is less dense and is to be taxed at half the millage rate. NIDs work, essentially, like business associations, but they get assistance from the city authorities, private donors and foundations.

On this NID, council's final vote could come as soon as Dec. 27.

Commercial property owners would pay 5 mills in section one and 2.5 mills in section two.

Proponents said they have support from more than 90 percent of those affected.

Opponents include some owners of the Loft Condominiums on Centre Avenue who said they were not consulted in the planning but are 90 of the 304 property owners to be assessed. Owner-occupiers of houses will not be assessed.

Three protesting business owners said they expect to take care of their own cleaning and security and do not relish subsidizing others.

Jim Rosenbloom, owner of Club One, a fitness club, asked council, "If someone falls and gets hurt [on snow or ice], do I tell them to go sue the NID group?"

Lars Olander, president of the East Liberty Chamber of Commerce, said NIDs are becoming popular nationwide as tools to increase property values and gain investment where city resources are stretched thin.

Such groups operate in three city neighborhoods now, with varying lifespans.

The Western Avenue NID in Allegheny West on the North Side is a one-shot program to overhaul two blocks of Western Avenue streetscape. When the work is complete, next year possibly, it will disband.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership formed in 1994. It has hired private security, cleanup crews, improved facades and infrastructure and marketed Downtown as a neighborhood and destination.

Its levy is now at nearly $5 per $1,000 of assessed land value.

Mike Edwards, president and CEO, said apprehension is high when NIDs are born "but over time, in our case and in the case of NIDs across the country, they prove their value, so opposition is much less."

The other NID is still called by its old name, the Oakland Business Improvement District.

Rob Stephany, the URA's deputy executive director of planning and development, said participation in a NID "should feel like an investment. It is the only way Main Streets can compete with malls. We would love to see more NIDs implemented in the city, because we are seeing Main Streets becoming competitive again."