Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolven
They promoted mixed retail and residential developments to increase the walkability of areas. Then they immediately let the developers off of the hook to deliver that.
It may have been successful in building houses but it was not successful in demonstrating how the city can pitch a strategy and then have it successfully deliver on that strategy to the people (especially the people resistant to said strategy to begin with).
If you pitch an idea and fail to deliver on it then that doesn't make people very receptive to the next, bigger idea that is even more impactful to people.
Then you end up with a rezoning election.
Was there also talk about lowering taxes? I hardly heard that message in the midst of all of the talk of either repealing or fixing the rezoning.
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Mixed use doesn't improve walkability...it just means more people walking. Good sidewalks, good crossings, and slower vehicle speeds are what improve walkability. Montgomery hit on all three, and Montgomery has delivered mixed-use on either side of 45 St (albeit likely planned before main street). Whenever the rest of the retail strip redevelops it will almost certainly be mixed-use, too.
37th and 17th haven't done great at slowing traffic. On 37th its because they want Max Teal to run fast, but the better answer would have been a bus lane. 37th and 19th is new mixed-use. OG Primal Grounds location at 37th and 28th would have been good for mixed-use, but it was redeveloped circa 2020 into denser commercial use. I'm guessing at that time they would have needed to apply for land-use change to do otherwise, that's not necessary today with H-GO, but it will be necessary again after repeal.
Empty CRUs (commercial retail units) are way worse than occupied residential units. I'm not sure occupied CRUs are really any better than occupied residential at this point...we just need more homes. Mixed-use will come when the population demands it.