I had a conversation with a friend from Charlotte over the weekend, and he just didn’t by my theory that planning departments rule cities and, unfortunately, planning departments are operated under politically-correct New Urbanist theories. Then I read this week’s Rhino write-up of Greensboro’s new land development ordinance, which describes the LDO as “yet another attempt by the Planning Department to run Greensboro.”
John Hammer goes on:
If the city is going to force a property owner to destroy his property, doesn’t it appear the burden should be on the city to prove that the property is illegal? In most cases in this country people are innocent until proven guilty. But when a property owner comes before the Planning Department, they are assumed to be guilty unless they can prove they are innocent.
The regulation is cleverly written so the property owner is required to produce “reasonable evidence.” The Planning Department is not required to produce evidence of any kind and it is completely subjective as to what is reasonable evidence.
As for the proposed downtown design guidelines, summed up well by David Wharton —-I understand concerns about high-powered developer Roy Carroll exercising regulatory capture. Yet I still don’t know why we need this extra layer of bureaucratic red tape.
I find it ironic that most of Carroll’s downtown Center Pointe —which got a ‘B’ grade from Dr. Wharton —- remains unsold, considering the fact it’s exactly the type of high-density development New Urbanists keep pushing. Carroll took incentives for the project, but he admittedly did a great job rehabbing the former Wachovia building. Yet nobody’s buying. Maybe that’s a sign that people just don’t want to live like that, design guidelines or not.
That said, I have a suggestion for an ordinance that might help Carroll sell more condos, which in turn would boost downtown: Make all downtown business owners landscape their rooftops. Looking west from the balcony of a Center Pointe condo, you mostly see a lot of tar, gravel, and air conditioning units. It’s not pretty.
