Bloor West Village BIA

Photos and transcription by contributor Wayne Adam - Posted November, 2011

On the west side of Runnymede Road, just north of Bloor Street West is a 2011 Bloor West Village BIA plaque erected with the assistance of the Ontario Heritage Trust. Here's what it says:

Plaque coordinates: 43.651525 -79.476553

In the late 1960s the Bloor-Jane-Runnymede Businessmen's Association concluded that the chief problem it faced was in the raising of funds to carry on its services to the local business community.
It developed a scheme whereby the business taxpayers in the area would invite the municipality to collect on their behalf an incremental part of their business taxes and hand it over to the Association to be used by it to improve the local streetscape and to promote the area as a good place to shop.
The Ontario Municipal Act was amended and the Association proposed to the City of Toronto that certain lands in its area become Bloor West Village Business Improvement Area.
On the 16th of September 1970 the City of Toronto, with the approval of the Ontario Municipal Board, accepted the application.
Thus was created the first Business Improvement Area anywhere in the world. By its 40th anniversary in 2010 there were more than 70 BIAs in Toronto, 240 in Ontario and 400 throughout Canada as well as in some 10 other countries.

Business Improvement Areas have become Toronto's gift to the world.

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