4 ms·

The zoning also is way too specific. Not far from my house is a busy intersection that has stuff like pawn shops and a run-down 7/11 at it. Very close to the in

The zoning also is way too specific. Not far from my house is a busy intersection that has stuff like pawn shops and a run-down 7/11 at it. Very close to the intersection is a lot that's been empty for at least a decade now. A few years ago my wife and I thought we should look up what it costs and see if we can just pave it and put a food cart pot down. Turns out you can't do it. You must build a two-unit building with a specific number of rooms and square footage. WTF?! It's like a planned economy for housing. Needles to say, the lot is still empty because nobody wants to build a home like that in that location.

bombcar 2y ago
The magic word is "variance" - the problem is it takes time (not even money, usually just time) to popularize an idea and get it publicly accepted and then pushed through the city council. I've seen it done; sometimes it takes a few months because it's simple and nobody cares, other times it takes years. And often the city council is itself playing the long game; waiting for the pawn shop and 7/11 to go out of business or sell, and then they snap it up, bulldoze it, and sell it to a developer who will build what they envision for the plot.
- macNchz 2y ago
  Something that turned me on to these issues in the first place was reading through the P&Z committee minutes for my rural New England hometown, where simply opening a hair salon in an existing, vacant commercial space in the village center has been a multi-year affair because their variance for not having off-street parking expired when the previous business closed. It's in a 150 year old commercial building and has had a variety of even higher-traffic businesses in it for decades, but now the town has created this artificial barrier to filling the existing space, which clearly functioned just fine before (the town has plenty of parking), and is dragging the process out through meeting after meeting. It's frustrating to watch.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    It's surprising how little effort is needed to move the needle on those kinds of things. If you started showing up at meetings and complaining about wanting the hair salon, it could be the difference between tabling for another month and letting it through. Especially if the number of people complaining keeps growing. I've seen it happen. The vast majority of these things go so far under the radar that it's no wonder the decision is often the "conservative" one (by which I mean status quo, the activity that requires no activity).

bombcar 2y ago

The magic word is "variance" - the problem is it takes time (not even money, usually just time) to popularize an idea and get it publicly accepted and then pushed through the city council. I've seen it done; sometimes it takes a few months because it's simple and nobody cares, other times it takes years. And often the city council is itself playing the long game; waiting for the pawn shop and 7/11 to go out of business or sell, and then they snap it up, bulldoze it, and sell it to a developer who will build what they envision for the plot.

macNchz 2y ago
Something that turned me on to these issues in the first place was reading through the P&Z committee minutes for my rural New England hometown, where simply opening a hair salon in an existing, vacant commercial space in the village center has been a multi-year affair because their variance for not having off-street parking expired when the previous business closed. It's in a 150 year old commercial building and has had a variety of even higher-traffic businesses in it for decades, but now the town has created this artificial barrier to filling the existing space, which clearly functioned just fine before (the town has plenty of parking), and is dragging the process out through meeting after meeting. It's frustrating to watch.
- bombcar 2y ago
  It's surprising how little effort is needed to move the needle on those kinds of things. If you started showing up at meetings and complaining about wanting the hair salon, it could be the difference between tabling for another month and letting it through. Especially if the number of people complaining keeps growing. I've seen it happen. The vast majority of these things go so far under the radar that it's no wonder the decision is often the "conservative" one (by which I mean status quo, the activity that requires no activity).