Big news on regional planning from this morning's News & Record:
GREENSBORO -- A "Heart of the Triad" development is moving forward with some financial help from the local business community.
A $400,000 study will be done by the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation [PART] to determine the best use of a 7,500-acre tract of largely undeveloped land in the center of the Triad.
People have been talking about the need for regional planning in the Triad for years, and UNCG urban geographer Keith Debbage recently made a powerful case for it in the News & Record -- so it's nice to see a plan finally get underway.
The unusual thing about this effort, however, is that it's being paid for partly by the business community. I guess business leaders finally just got tired of waiting for the politicians to get it going.
Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday wasn't happy about the local Chambers of Commerce sticking their oar in.
PART already has a $200,000 commitment from the N.C. Department of Transportation for half the study's expenses.
"I've never seen a situation where a public body would create a public plan and not pay for it," Holliday said.
But if the Chambers of Commerce had the time and energy to rustle up $200,000 for planning, why couldn't the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Commissioners have been doing the same thing?
When it comes to planning, I think, those two bodies just don't get it.
That might be because they have traditionally close relationships with the local building industry (represented by the lobbying group TREBIC), which is reflexively averse to such planning.
TREBIC doesn't like governments telling it where and what to build. A sign of this is the steady stream of requests from local developers to amend Greensboro's Comprehensive Plan -- requests which the City Council nearly always grants.
But builders and realtors are not the only business in town. The Chambers of Commerce represent a broader base of economic interests, and they see strong economic advantages in good land-use planning.
So the Chambers of Commerce are leading the planning charge, while local governments are playing catch-up.
3 comments:
So, do we need a real estate developer on the city council?
We already have real estate lawyers and real estate investors and real estate builders on many boards dealing with development. These boards are appointed by the city council.
Well, there are developers and then there are developers. Not all are planning-averse.
I'm putting together a questionnaire about planning and land use that I'll send to all the City Council candidates. If they answer, I'll post their responses on this blog.
"But if the Chambers of Commerce had the time and energy to rustle up $200,000 for planning, why couldn't the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Commissioners have been doing the same thing?"
Even if they had, they would have brought us "Wendover @ I-40" with everyone blaming everyone else. Our city/county government leaders spend more time sweating the small stuff and cannot (yet seem to) think bigger. I'd jump on the business community's rare chance to plan something useful and practical with parking and access/service roads.
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