Denver’s transit agency, RTD, has generated lots of controversy by planning to take people’s land by eminent domain. But in a recent case, RTD may have bitten off more than it can chew.
RTD proposes to take some land near downtown Denver to use as a maintenance facility. The owner is not some small business but a major development company that took out full-page, color ads in major Denver papers to protest the taking.
RTD has proposed to pay the developer 10 percent more than the company paid for the land six months ago. But the developer thinks it can make nearly triple its cost.
You will need flour (of course) and a bowl of milk to batter your cubed steak with. purchase generic cialis Ed. teacher has a good idea as complications may increase over time, making it even more difficult for them to live a life of sobriety. sildenafil india online The men experience the ill effects of the issue erectile brokenness that ordine cialis on line is a sexual issue. Since that time, many men have benefitted from various male enhancement reviews. cialis wholesale The developer wants to build a New Urban development complete with dense housing and retail. RTD’s response is that the land is zoned industrial, and as such it isn’t worth as much as the developer says. “The city needs to preserve certain areas as industrial,” says RTD’s highly paid general manager.
As a Colorado blogger points out, RTD has not hesitated to take industrial land elsewhere to build its rail empire. But that’s not what bothers the Antiplanner the most.
There was a time when cities were responsive to changing times and needs. Zoning was considered flexible. As industry was replaced by a commercial economy, developers would buy industrial land and ask to have the zoning changed, and cities would agree. The goal was to keep land in its “highest and best use,” if for no other reason than to maximize property tax revenues. Some cities are still like that.
But modern planners want to be prescriptive. “We zoned that industrial, and by god that’s what it is going to be.” So, if you have land that could be much more valuable if it were zoned some other way, and the government wants to take that land, it can take it at the lower-valued price. If you believe in planning and zoning, that probably makes perfect sense to you. If you don’t, it is just one more absurd contradiction that is a part of urban planning.
Wow – now you actually sound like you’re on the same side as a New Urbanist. New Urban projects and mixed use projects are the hardest to build under current zoning law because there are no “zones” for them, and they involve a lengthy zoning change process virtually 100% of the time, which as we all know takes years and years and years.
That’s one of the reasons why mixed use advocates are always bitching on here. It’s easy for people to support suburbia because it’s allowed under the current zoning… mixed use is not. So, like the AP said, even if a developer actually genuinely wants to build a walkable environment, the P&Z people can play games and try and keep the property zoned something else.
(Keep in mind that this is NOT about Smart Growth, which would just change the “prescriptions” in place. This is just about people trying to do what they find most valuable with the property and the government stopping them.)
Isn’t industrial land usually worth more than residential…?
BTW: If you’re a developer who buys industrial land intending to use it for residential purposes, you proceed at your own risk. There is no guarantee that a zone change will be granted. Talk about a “sense of entitlement”.
Hierarchy of land value by classification: commercial, residential, industrial, ag.
And while I can see the issues in this case, boo-hoo for the developer. He’s trying to game the system to place pressure on decision-makers (as opposed to planners, who don’t make decisions) to rezone so he can make money. Happens all the time. If everyone caved every time a developer had some scheme, our cities would be chaos. IOW: too bad. He knew what the zoning was.
And Costco offering $20/ft for that place? Please. Plenty of places cheaper than that. Costco isn’t going to go away – they just pulled out of Wheat Ridge after the city subsidized their infra upgrade, so fuggem. There’s a place waiting for them, with free, taxpayer-paid infra with easier traffic.
DS
commercial, residential, industrial, ag
But surely New Urbanist residential is worth less than industrial…Or so we’re led to believe around here.
I don’t think that this eminent domian case brings zoning into question. My question about eminent domain is why have the courts determined that “just compensation” = “market value.” Not that I feel bad for a developer who has deep enough pockets to build intense mixed use developments and go through the zoning change process. But what about people that are kicked out of their home (in “bad” neighborhoods) often in the name of revitalization, or dare I say it, to build a highway, and given the “market vaule” for their home, and it’s not enough for them to buy a new home somewhere else. Is that “just compensation?”
What is more troubling to me is that RTD is allowed to use eminent domain for a bus facility. I can understand that if the paradigm is to have eminent domain, I can see it’s use of for right-of-ways or even a light rail maintenance facility since those need to be next to the tracks. A bus maintenance facility doesn’t have those sort of limitations. There is no need for it, the facility could be anywhere around there. It doesn’t have to be just that one building. RTD’s invoking eminent domain to get a facility on the cheap.
Funny to see that the idea of zoning and converting industrial to other uses coming up. I was thinking about that again this morning as I was biking to work. The west side of my neighborhood is all light industrial. There’s basically bupkiss that’s significant about it. I’ve wondered how some of it may change if that are had ALL zoning removed; build whatever you want, however you want to.
The city of Denver has much better options. They could downzone the property (say 40 acre minimum) and then take it through eminent domain at the new price, probably less than 1 million. They just need to get some creative ideas from Portlanders…