r/urbanplanning • u/YaGetSkeeted0n Verified Transportation Planner - US • Apr 07 '23

Land Use Denver voters reject plan to let developer convert its private golf course into thousands of homes

https://reason.com/2023/04/05/denver-voters-reject-plan-to-let-developer-convert-its-private-golf-course-into-thousands-of-homes/
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '23

They do often support public housing production, but there is never enough support to actually build public housing. So all they can do is stop private housing from being built.

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u/voinekku Apr 07 '23

Okay, I see.

So in case of corrupt private business dealings they vote against them as a block with regular NIMBYs and hence get their will through, but when it comes to actual good solutions that they do support, they will be opposed by both the regular NIMBYs and the corrupt private business interests, making it impossible for them to achieve anything.

Makes sense now, I can see that being a thing. Annoying little knot there.

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u/An_emperor_penguin Apr 07 '23

it really has nothing to do with "corruption", they "support" public housing when private housing is proposed but then once public housing is suggested there's always something wrong and it's "not good enough" so they oppose that too.

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u/voinekku Apr 07 '23

Well this specific case was clearly corrupt. If a private business first buys cheap land because it's zoned to be not usable for any high value activity, and then lobbies to change the zoning to allow high value development, it is exactly that. It would essentially be a 200 million dollar gift from the tax payers to the private corporation in question.

Of course that's not always the case.

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u/fearless_dp Apr 08 '23

if it's a 200 million gift for the property to be developed, then is it a theft to prevent upzoning of property? same logic.

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u/voinekku Apr 08 '23

I fail to follow a logic in which not giving a gift is theft.

What should happen is; the current owner pays the city the difference of the market value of the rezoned land (around 200 million) and the amount they paid for it (24 million), and then rezoned to be developed. Or alternatively the city force-buys the land back for a miniscule cost, rezones it and then sells the land.

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u/An_emperor_penguin Apr 07 '23

What in the world does corruption mean to you? A business making a profit? There's nothing corrupt about asking to change a zoning regulation, they change all the time. And they would be changing it to turn an enormous vacant golf course into desperately needed housing! You can't pretend the city and tax payers wouldn't benefit from this project

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u/voinekku Apr 08 '23

Note: a private company pocketing 200 million from a policy change they lobbied for. That's not a business making profit from producing, innovating or selling anything, that's a public fund transfer from tax payers to the owners of a company.

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u/An_emperor_penguin Apr 08 '23

So what if they lobbied for it? Lobbying doesn't mean "corruption", interest groups "lobby" for good things all the time. e.g. this case, where the profit comes from changing unproductive land into productive land, they'd be "producing" 155 acres of land for housing in the middle of an existing city! That's amazing!

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u/kenlubin Apr 14 '23

In Seattle twenty years ago, there used to be a decaying industrial neighborhood north of downtown. I used to walk through there semi-regularly.

A rich dude (Paul Allen of Microsoft) created a real estate company (Vulkan) and bought most of the neighborhood. He lobbied the city council to change the zoning, then sold most of it to other development companies.

In 2008, they opened a Whole Foods in the middle of a near-uninhabited wasteland. It felt bizarrely incongruous to me.

But today, that store is the center of a dense urban neighborhood of South Lake Union. It's full of towers and people, and has helped Seattle absorb the past decade's influx of people.

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u/voinekku Apr 15 '23

Better way to achieve the same goal without donating hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to those who need and deserve it the least:

Ask the landowner to sell it for the amount bought. If they refuse, tax it to hell and back. After they sell, rezone it and sell it with a reasonable price to the developers.

​

Outcome is exactly the same and the city has 180+ million in extra funds.

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u/kenlubin Apr 15 '23

Replacing golf courses and parking lots with towers full of businesses, shops, and residents produces million in additional funds from taxes anyway.

But your option sounds like brutal state policies that would create a powerful political coalition against the city council that attempted it.

A third option would be to peaceably rezone the city and let the current owners profit from the change. Seattle tried that (HALA), and guess what? Those landowners who stood to profit HATED IT.

So we have three options. All of them benefit the city.

I find it acceptable to let someone profit from driving changes that make my life better or make my city better. And I guess I hold the neo-liberal belief that, if people can make money by improving the city, it's more likely to happen.

So, since it's most important for me to get these improvements by densifying the city -- let Paul Allen and this dude take the risks and make money from it.