After three failed attempts to gather enough votes from property owners for the creation of a business improvement district, the MiMo Biscayne Association has teamed up with other community groups to get the Florida Legislature to change the law on how BIDs can be created.

A business improvement district is an organization created by businesses within a specified area to tax themselves for neighborhood improvements, such as marketing, street upgrades, or security. Florida law currently states that a majority of all property owners within a proposed district’s boundaries need to vote in favor of the creation of district for it to be approved, but an amendment supported by the MiMo Biscayne Association and other community groups would change that by making it necessary to only get a majority of the property owners who vote.

Under current law, property owners who don’t vote — say, because they are absentee landlords — are counted as “no” votes.

The new proposal is being spearheaded by the Coral Gables Business Improvement District and counts with the support of 12 community organizations south of Orlando.

Mari Gallet, executive director of the Coral Gables BID, said she is working with the Florida Redevelopment Association, a Tallahassee-based nonprofit that assists in neighborhood revitalization efforts, to lobby for the cause from the state’s capital, and has urged all the groups interested in starting a BID to call up their representatives in Tallahassee to support the amendment.

Gallet says their proposal would solve a significant challenge faced by groups trying to start BIDs: apathy.

“You have a lot of folks that are just not interested,” Gallet said. “Those people now would not affect the outcome.”

The MiMo Biscayne Association has sent a letter to state Rep. Cynthia Stafford, D-Miami, but the proposed amendment has yet to gain a sponsor.

A total of 73 property owners compose the strip in the historic district that the association is trying to turn into a BID, an area that goes from 63rd to 76th Street on Biscayne Boulevard. If the proposition passed, property owners in the historic district would have to pay three years of extra taxes ranging from $79 to $5,500 for the first year, depending on the property’s size, use and income, according to documents presented by supporters to the Miami City Commission in June 2011.

The association has proposed spending BID funds on security, and an advertising campaign to try to erase the image of prostitution and crime that has characterized the area in the past.

If recent history is any guide, the proposed amendment may face a tough road ahead.

In 2008, the Coral Gables and Coconut Grove business improvement committees pushed for the exact same amendment. The bill was passed by the Florida House of Representatives but never considered by the Senate.

Gallet said one of the problems is that since the amendment is such a small piece of legislation, it tends to become attached to another bill. When that bill is killed, so is the amendment.

“If it gets attached to a bill that’s not popular, chances are it won’t pass,” Gallet said.

The goal for the coalition of community organizations is to get the amendment on the Florida House before the end of the legislative session in May.