Urban Infill

We've painted ourselves into a corner. This is obvious to everyone except the EDC and the twelve members of the City Council. I'm always happy when I see someone building on an empty lot in the urban core. That's why I was happy to see two preliminaries for building on a grassy lot on the Northwest corner of 14th and Paseo in this week's City Council minutes (ordinances 090242, and 090243).

That feeling didn't last.

The zoning for this lot is being changed from high-density residential to retail commercial. Let's think this through. The city has too much retail space, suggesting that this plan should not be approved by city hall. But wait, the glut of retail was actually created because city hall has over incentivised retail. Whatever is going to be built on this spot, I can't find anything that says a city incentive was involved at all. That's exactly what we want to encourage. But wait, the glut of incentivised retail means that anything being put here will have to fight against artificially elevated levels of competition. We've painted ourselves into a corner. I think this is obvious to everyone except the EDC and the twelve members of the City Council.

The property in question has been a vacant lot for years. I think this would be a good location for light industry. No demolition costs. No new infrastructure. Close to a highway. Why has that not happened? Currently our system is structured to make greenfield construction easier and more likely than infill.