After Monday night’s thrashing at the hands of city council, minus Alan Halberstadt, I went home and sulked for a little while. Not because I hate losing, which I do, but because they failed to even acknowledge that we had raised legitimate issues. Sure, it was a lot of information very quickly. I don’t dispute that fact, but the information was there. They got an earful during our presentation, had a hardcopy in front of them and got the opportunity for reinforcement via Halberstadt’s Q&A. Yet they still missed everything we tried to say.
The sticking point for council seemed to be the promised $4.8 million in annual tax revenues and 1500 jobs for the area. Although we had empirical evidence that showed that tax revenues would not cover the increased costs of developing this tract of land, nor would the promised jobs cover the losses in the existing retail sector, council did not want to listen.
Ironically, The Lynn Martin Show was dominated by citizens calling in opposing the Big Box development Tuesday morning. (Thanks to Al McKinnon for bringing this to our attention). I had actually emailed the AM800 Morning Show our power point presentation shortly after hearing Eddie Francis, on his regular Tuesday morning pit stop with Mike and Lisa, applaud this new development then admit that the city was going to need to either cut services or increase taxes to meet the reduced budget. He even had the audacity to suggest that this was the way it was and we simply had no other choice. I’m pretty sure that Mayor Francis sat through our presentation on Monday. Was he not paying attention? If we get the transcript our audio from the Morning Show and The Lynn Martin show [and permission from the station] we’ll post it here for you for those of you missed it.
Though it seems that critical mass is on our side, council has failed to echo the voice of the people. I have a suggestion for council and the Coco Development Group to win back the support of the public -- back the development with a surety bond. Forcing Coco to restore and lease, or dispose of, the old Royal Bank building downtown is not out of the question. The real clincher would be to have them waive all reductions in property taxes for vacant buildings within the city limits. This shouldn’t apply just to the West end retail development, but all vacant property held by Coco Development and subsidiaries. (I know how the numbered corporation game works!)
Remember, their “expert” claimed that Windsor was not over-stored and that we could absorb another 420,000 sq ft of retail “without too much impact” to existing retailers. Alan Halberstadt pointed out a number of buildings that have been abandoned, or will shortly be abandoned, by Big Box retailers. While Windsor is intimately familiar with brownfields – abandoned buildings, especially Big Box stores, known as greyfields -- are a new addition to our failing reality. Taxpayers should not have to subsidize the urban blight of abandoned superstores through reduced taxes for vacant buildings. Let’s see if Jenny Coco and crew are willing to back up their experts testimony with cold, hard cash.
I’m not sure if the city has the courage to stand up to such a “responsible corporate citizen” as the Coco Group, though I certainly hope they try. As for fighting the good fight, it’s not over yet. This was just a zoning change. There is still fight left in the purveyors of SDW and the citizens of Windsor. This development will not go forward uncontested, even if the odds are 10-1.
The sticking point for council seemed to be the promised $4.8 million in annual tax revenues and 1500 jobs for the area. Although we had empirical evidence that showed that tax revenues would not cover the increased costs of developing this tract of land, nor would the promised jobs cover the losses in the existing retail sector, council did not want to listen.
Ironically, The Lynn Martin Show was dominated by citizens calling in opposing the Big Box development Tuesday morning. (Thanks to Al McKinnon for bringing this to our attention). I had actually emailed the AM800 Morning Show our power point presentation shortly after hearing Eddie Francis, on his regular Tuesday morning pit stop with Mike and Lisa, applaud this new development then admit that the city was going to need to either cut services or increase taxes to meet the reduced budget. He even had the audacity to suggest that this was the way it was and we simply had no other choice. I’m pretty sure that Mayor Francis sat through our presentation on Monday. Was he not paying attention? If we get the transcript our audio from the Morning Show and The Lynn Martin show [and permission from the station] we’ll post it here for you for those of you missed it.
Though it seems that critical mass is on our side, council has failed to echo the voice of the people. I have a suggestion for council and the Coco Development Group to win back the support of the public -- back the development with a surety bond. Forcing Coco to restore and lease, or dispose of, the old Royal Bank building downtown is not out of the question. The real clincher would be to have them waive all reductions in property taxes for vacant buildings within the city limits. This shouldn’t apply just to the West end retail development, but all vacant property held by Coco Development and subsidiaries. (I know how the numbered corporation game works!)
Remember, their “expert” claimed that Windsor was not over-stored and that we could absorb another 420,000 sq ft of retail “without too much impact” to existing retailers. Alan Halberstadt pointed out a number of buildings that have been abandoned, or will shortly be abandoned, by Big Box retailers. While Windsor is intimately familiar with brownfields – abandoned buildings, especially Big Box stores, known as greyfields -- are a new addition to our failing reality. Taxpayers should not have to subsidize the urban blight of abandoned superstores through reduced taxes for vacant buildings. Let’s see if Jenny Coco and crew are willing to back up their experts testimony with cold, hard cash.
I’m not sure if the city has the courage to stand up to such a “responsible corporate citizen” as the Coco Group, though I certainly hope they try. As for fighting the good fight, it’s not over yet. This was just a zoning change. There is still fight left in the purveyors of SDW and the citizens of Windsor. This development will not go forward uncontested, even if the odds are 10-1.
2 comments:
If you want things to go your way you have to re-direct your efforts. Starting with the downtown core. You have to appeal to the current ownership, on one level and the city of Windsor (specifically the planning Department) on another. Historically, the "ownership" of downtown commercial and retail buildings have been allowed to sit on their properties with full incentive and a blind eye from the city. There are probably some very glaring reasons which underlie this state of suspension but let's not get into that. I think you eluded to this as well. They are all holding onto those properties waiting for the fat corporate "buy out" whenever that time comes. Until then they are not going to invest a dime of their own because their game is only about real estate speculation. Sadly, those places have been stuck in this state of limbo since the mid seventies and the "the big one" just hasn't come.
Here's what the new incentive has to look like: STRICT AND STRUCTURED PROPERTY STANDARDS for the downtown core. If you own property you must do two things: Adhere to the official plan which determines to some extent the look, feel and theme of downtown and maintain your property to a higher bar of standards. The city has to enforce that with regular inspections and fines where applicable (thats hoe your parents taught you to keep your room clean). Sound tough? Not really. When was the last time you ever noticed "gum pocks" in any shopping mall. The other incentive, of coarse, is to keep property taxes at an appropriate level to encourage developement. That does not mean lower taxes, it means higher taxes! If you keep the taxes artificially low (for whatever reasons) there is actually more incentive to do nothing but sit on those properties and let them rot. Bump taxes up and ownership will will have more reason to make their spaces attractive to retailers and other businesses. Think this is far fetched? Not at all. For a glaring example of this you only have to go across the river to Birmingham or Royal Oak and ask their Planning departments how they have achieved their downtown bustle. If we all look back at what made Windsor's downtown so attractive in the 50s and 60s one thing becomes quite apparent. There was pride in ownership and everybody tended to their core business without barking for leniency and handouts. Back then we had huge retail concerns like Bartlett's Dept Store, Smiths Department store, Metropolitan, Kresges, Adelmans, Teppermans, Birks and a hundred others. They were all well kept, clean and more importantly well used. They were in business to make money and they payed their taxes full up.
To repeat...Re-direct your efforts towards the downtown property ownership and the planning department. It's the most obvious and strategic battle front.
I was infuriated with council more on Monday than I have ever been in the past and I've been involved with cycling advocacy in this city for some time which itself can cause a ton of angst.
They completely ignored facts presented to them and glossed over anything critical with no facts of their own or without evidently having done any research of their own. I actually sent all the PAC members and Dave Brister a letter a few weeks ago with links to excellent resources that point out the issues of this type of development and focus on reinvigorating the cores of cities. This quite obviously fell on deaf ears or blind eyes in this case as Brister was the only one who replied to me but plainly did no further reading of his own or he would have brought it up at council as a point at least.
Maybe I'm wrong in that assumption though, perhaps he read all of it and chose to just ignore it with the promise of 1500 jobs and increased revenue dangled in his face. Council seems to think that there will be no jobs lost elsewhere due to this redeployment of big box outlets and no lost tax revenue from empty lots. How is it that when stores are left empty that the thieves who abandoned them get tax breaks. If I choose to move and leave my house empty will I get tax breaks. It's not like these stores went out of business, all they are doing is moving capital to a location which they think will be more profitable at our expense.
They don't have to pay for the roads or services out to the property, lucky us, we'll be the ones who subsidize this cancerous plot of land and we'll also be on the hook for any of the empty lots left behind, hooray! This will also have the negative effect of reducing propery values and taxes in other vital parts of the city as we have already witnessed with the core over the last 30 years since the mall opened, my mother in laws' house has been worth virtually the same value for two decades, while the burbs have skyrocketed in price and taxes.
This type of backward thinking was cast aside in the 70's in Portland, Oregon and they haven't looked back. It's now one of the most livable cities in North America and has a wonderful vibrant core that is rich in the arts. It's only over 30 years later and city councillors in communities like ours still can't connect the dots that if explained to any grade schooler the way Chris and Josh explained it to council would be able to understand the ramifications of these myopic decisions.
The saddest part of this story is that over 5 years ago I had a conversation with a mayoral candidate about the direction he would take our city in. During this conversation, I brought up how forward thinking Portland was and he regaled to me that he had been there and what a beautiful city it was and when I asked him if that's what he envisioned for Windsor, he replied absolutely. He seemed so emphatic at the time to be able to help change our city for the better that he had me convinced and I garnered support for him from most of my friends and colleagues arguing that he was the best choice to lead our city. Well anyone that knows me also knows how much I hate to be wrong but it's quite obvious from Monday's meeting and other previously glaring mistakes and arrogances that I was grievously in error and regret my support of the king greatly.
That being said, I'm not certain from what I've seen that Marra would have been any better and maybe would have been even worse as he has let me down very hard in the past as well. Perhaps when he gets his kick at the can, we'll see if he can do any better and lead for the people and not the corporations, but somehow I doubt it, better the devil you know I guess.
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