Deals like this always make you suspicious. Someone bought some land in Lakewood Colorado for $650,000, and eight days later sold it to the city of Lakewood for $1.1 million.
The city, which thinks it got a good deal, plans to use the land for “affordable housing” next to a projected light-rail station. But why didn’t the city buy it eight days earlier when it could have saved almost half the cost? Does the previous landowner feel ripped off when they could have made $1.1 million if they had sold to the city instead of the middle-man?
Of course, they wouldn’t need affordable housing if it were not for the planners with their growth limits, urban-service boundaries, and so forth. And, being that this is next to a proposed light-rail station, you wonder if it will really be affordable or just another transit-oriented development that is “affordable” only because the units are smaller, more crowded, and less desirable than single-family homes.
What leads to ED? cialis price respitecaresa.org Numerous issues can lead to man’s ability to have sex. order viagra cheap This could have some excellent implications for many couples who are trying to conceive. Erectile dysfunction occurs due to an insufficient blood flow to the penis at the point of mental arousal http://respitecaresa.org/events/latest-news/page/2/ purchase cheap cialis it becomes difficulty to attain firm or lasting erections. You can simply squeeze the sachet on see for info now sildenafil overnight a spoon or taken directly by emptying the contents into your mouth.
Meanwhile, Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) is still trying to figure out what it is going to do about the “unforeseen” increases in construction costs that have driven up projected rail costs by 65 percent. I happened to debate RTD’s director, Cal Marsella, a few weeks ago, and he promised that the agency would still build the entire system on time and on budget.
While there might be a few minor changes, such as single tracks instead of double tracks on some portions of the light-rail lines, he promised those changes would not affect the operations — they would still run as many trains. Which led me to ask: If they could run as many trains as they planned on single tracks, why did they propose double tracks in the first place?
To persuade people that it is doing a good job, RTD made a big deal about starting construction of one of the rail projects. But it isn’t really starting construction. All it is doing is tearing out the old rails from an abandoned freight line. There is still a lot of engineering and design work needed before any actual construction begins.
The city, which thinks it got a good deal, plans to use the land for “affordable housing†next to a projected light-rail station. [emphasis added]
Not really. What evidence do you have that Lakewood thinks it got a good deal.
Anyway, this sort of land deal happens more often than you think. Any bureaucracy – private or public, cannot turn and act on a dime, esp when spending this kind of money. I guarantee you that if Lakewood made hasty purchases crabby little men would come out of the woodwork and complain about that too.
Just before I left Sacto., Elk Grove did the same thing with land for a high school, but for 10x as much money. I tried to organize a group to oppose the deal, to no avail – I’m not sure why the parents/taxpayers didn’t care their taxes were going up for no reason.
DS
DS said, “What evidence do you have that Lakewood thinks it got a good deal?”
How about the comment in the article I cited by a city officials who said, “We are completely thrilled to own the parcel.” He added, “We were not concerned about their (the sellers’) profits.”
I suppose you could argue that being “thrilled” is not the same as feeling like you got a good deal. If so, you are simply highlighting everything that is wrong with government development projects. Because government planners are using other people’s money, they don’t care if they get ripped off or not.
Instead of having housing agencies building so-called “affordable housing,” places like the Denver urban area should simply relax all their building restrictions and make all housing more affordable.
“Because government planners are using other people’s money, they don’t care if they get ripped off or not.”
This makes it sound as if planners themselves purchased the land, which I doubt was the case. Isn’t it usually a city council/mayor that makes decisions about how money is spent? Unless you mean to include those entities under your definition of “government planners”.
“Instead of having housing agencies building so-called “affordable housing,†places like the Denver urban area should simply relax all their building restrictions and make all housing more affordable.”
If “affordable housing” were the only goal that local governments are responsible for promoting, then that’s what they should probably do. But even the Antiplanner acknowledges that “Building a town…requires that lots of different factors be taken into consideration: transportation, education, income, police and emergency services, recreation, communications, public health, private health, food services, distribution of other goods, and governance to name just a few.†Relaxing all building restrictions won’t necessarily have a positive impact on all of these factors (and the additional factors you didn’t mention specifically). There are inevitable tradeoffs involved, aren’t there?
I bet if we watch this deal we will see the City sell that same parcel for $600K or less. They might even sell to the person that they bought it from. This is a technique to indirectly subsidize projects and get the kind of development that the planners want.
Anyone reading the full article with their critical thinking skills turned on**, Randal, will have a hard time finding an official being thrilled with the deal. You are trying too hard.
DS
** One key, I find, to certain ideological arguments is that they don’t want you to follow the link.
Expanding upon D4P’s thought:
Instead of having housing agencies building so-called “affordable housing,†places like the Denver urban area should simply relax all their building restrictions and make all housing more affordable.
Actually, most planners want fewer building restrictions. As one of Randal’s favorites, Glaeser, notes but Randal doesn’t, it is homeowners insisting to politicians that their home values be preserved by restricting development types that causes many home shortages.
It is not planners making the restrictions.
DS
Dan,
In my experience it is staff who brings forward most planning proposals and staff that writes most (if not all) of the planning code. Staff also guides various citizen committees and the planning commission through updates and applications.
Planning would be a different beast if it were not for the staff planners down at city hall, the county offices, and the Rogue Valley Council of Governments. In each of these locations staff works to tighten rules and regulations continually. Efforts to relax any rules are subverted.
Sure there are rent seekers looking to use government to make a buck or save a buck but shouldn’t the planners be exposing those people? I have yet to see it and I expect it is because those rent seeker’s goals are in line with the planners.
Dan, “most planners want fewer building restrictions”
LMFAO!!!! HAAAAA, HAAAA, HAAAAA
Thanks for the Friday chuckle.
Steve, I deal with staff all the time and the thing I notice most is that the planners I deal with seem to always want to interpret any grey areas in a way that is least helpful to whatever one is trying to accomplish. They act as though they are somehow on the “governement’s side” and I am trying to take something from the government.
Let me first say that when you work the counter, the norm is to find that the person on the other side of the counter is trying to get away with everything they can. That’s just how it is. When you find an applicant that isn’t trying to get away with everything, it stands out. It’s the main reason I won’t do current planning any more.
Second, across most of the country, the majority of planners want more housing types, more housing choices, fewer cr*ppy-looking McSuburbs, more transportation choices, more people walking the streets, fewer cr*ppy development proposals. If you want to LYAO, it just reflects on you, not me. Fewer restrictions means having fewer building restrictions such as setback, architectural standards, street widths, height, mixed-uses, and yes – carrots to do good at the same time as sticks. This does not mean loosening restrictions on erosion and sediment control, x # of tiedowns per foot, enforcing R-19 walls, requiring a traffic plan, mitigating x because of your y.
Lastly, planning staff can offer code all they want, but if it can’t get 4 votes (or 5 or 7 or 9), fuhgeddaboutdit. I can go on and on about the battles I’m in the middle of here that require considerable compromise, and one of them is here in the arid West, there ain’t a whole lotta political will to put any city’s foot down to stop wasting water. Bad for biness, y’see. We have a conservation plan that is in danger of being shelf art because it’s for some reason bad to limit turf, because dontcha know somehow in the distant future Tinkerbell will wave her magic wand and water will miraculously flow from the ground.
I read here a lot of complaining, and much of it from the author arises from not knowing or deliberately misrepresenting how things work. From the rest it appears to be conflation of one experience to all conditions.
DS
“Let me first say that when you work the counter, the norm is to find that the person on the other side of the counter is trying to get away with everything they can. That’s just how it is. When you find an applicant that isn’t trying to get away with everything, it stands out. It’s the main reason I won’t do current planning any more.”
Amen.
If planners really wanted more housing types they wouldn’t use insulting terms like “McSuburb” or “McMansion” to describe the public’s refusal to make choices the planner personally approves of. Zoning for more dense condo and townhome sites when developers are saying their customers want single-family homes isn’t “giving the public choices when the developers won’t”, it’s deliberately undersupplying SFHs because you don’t like them. Planners want more transportation choices, “more choice” being code for “I’m going to ram light rail and buses down your throats whether you like it or not”. What planners should be doing is saying “if people want automobility, how can we improve that” or “if people want McSuburbs, how can we make that more affordable”. Planners should enable. Instead they’re saying “I want what I want, and you the public are too stupid and/or uneducated to want the right thing, so I’m going to write a plan that makes you do the right thing”.
argirl implicitly brings up an important point for planners. Historically, planners were expected to be technical experts responsible for identifying the most efficient means of achieving given ends (e.g. given by elected officials, citizens, etc.). This role has proven unsatisfactory for a lot of planners, particularly those who were attracted to the planning profession because they thought it offered them an opportunity to pursue particular causes and to “make a difference in the world”. Also, over time, it has become clear that limiting the focus to the ends given by other entities essentially means that economic development will be prioritized at the expense of other legitimate ends (e.g. environmental protection, air and water quality, equity, etc.). These other ends thus become subsumed under the notion of “the public interest” that planners are supposed to represent, or at least, that the planning profession has historically believed they should represent.
“Instead they’re saying “I want what I want, and you the public are too stupid and/or uneducated to want the right thing, so I’m going to write a plan that makes you do the right thingâ€Â.”
Just as laws that prohibit murder, rape, drug use, speeding, etc. etc. etc. tell murderers, rapists, drug users, speeders, etc. etc. etc. “You are too stupid and/or educated to want the right thing, so I’m going to adopt laws that make you do the right thing”.
My fiance calls her suburb McSuburb. That’s where I got it from. And it is.
And, again, the planner Randal profiled this past week -counseled that planners should be enablers rather than statists or whatever is the marginalization phrase in vogue today. I never ap[proach my work as an expert.
DS
No, that’s not right. We prohibit murder and rape because they directly harm others. The same goes for dumping dioxins or heavy metals on somebody else’s land. Living in a single-family home rather than a condo doesn’t hurt anybody. Planning these days isn’t about reducing harm, it’s about having an impact, making people do as you want, not as they want. Then when people complain, planners resort to the fallacy of credentialism slap down their critics.
I know emulating Europe is fashionable these days, but why? I don’t ask people with less money than I have for financial advice, why would I ask less affluent countries for advice on land use? Their policies are why they’re less affluent. Our poor live like their middle class. In my opinion only a fool or a monk aspires to a lower standard of living.
“Living in a single-family home rather than a condo doesn’t hurt anybody.”
This is a matter of opinion. A given number of single-family homes typically requires more land than a given number of condos. Some people believe that using more land (especially if such land provides valuable functions to humans, wildlife, etc.) is a “bad thing”. You may disagree.
“I don’t ask people with less money than I have for financial advice, why would I ask less affluent countries for advice on land use?”
Hmmm. But you seem to think that civilians know more than land use planners about land use.
How does a house hurt you? I can think of no conceivable way by which land that isn’t being used how you demand it be used hurts you. If you want to live in a condo, go right ahead, just don’t use the coercive power of government to force me to. If you don’t want developers building, buy the land yourself with your own money rather than use coervice regulation or taxpayer money. But then if you did that you’d be forced to bear the costs of your preferences rather than require others to pay those costs, and you risk the landowner saying “no”, so we can’t have that can we?
Just because a planner might now more about how land can or might be used doesn’t make it ok for them to dictate how land is used. I want planners out of the vision business and back to the business of enabling landowners. Back to the business of improving our roads rather than intentionally ignoring them.
There are numerous misconceptions here.
I don’t ask people with less money than I have for financial advice, why would I ask less affluent countries for advice on land use?
No. This is an incorrect premise. European land use and American pre-WWII land use patterns were very similar. Anyway,
Affluence has nothing to do with land use. You want to ask people who have lived in the same place for 1,000+ years about land use. That would be Yurp (or America, long ago).
Planning these days isn’t about reducing harm, it’s about having an impact, making people do as you want, not as they want. Then when people complain, planners resort to the fallacy of credentialism slap down their critics.
No.
And there is no evidence presented to back this claim. Planning is absolutely not making people do as you want (hence all this visioning stuff – finding out what people who participate in the planning process want).
And maybe one or two resort to credentialism to slap down their critics, but that doesn’t mean one can resort to the fallacy of conflation to slap down all planners.
Back to the business of improving our roads rather than intentionally ignoring them.
No.
You may recall the loads of engineers repeatedly stating that our society as a whole is neglecting basic infrastructure. There is simply not enough money to perform basic maintenance. That is not planning’s fault. Planners want safer, longer-lasting roads, as this is efficient provisioning of services.
Nonetheless, planners don’t ignore roads. Perhaps you have read ideological tracts that conflate non-motorized safety programs with ignoring the car. I know zero (no, none, zip, zilch, nada, kein) planners that ignore roads.
I want planners out of the vision business and back to the business of enabling landowners.
A good start would b e fewer initiatives with wording similar to M37. If that’s the enabling you want, the majority will never grant it. Remember: society chooses and grants and changes property rights as societal mores change. But threatening home value by loosening restrictions on your neighbor is a societal more that won’t change [good fences make good neighbors].
DS