So what do the ‘poor’ developers in town think about this?
Sioux Falls building permits continue on record pace.
As predicted, total construction value for the year has already topped more than half a billion dollars. From January through September, the total construction value of permits issued came in at $502,143,850.
New manufacturing accounts for $23 million and commercial construction for nearly $36 million. The number of apartments also outpaces single family homes. New residential housing totals $208.7 million.
The largest year for construction activity was in 2007 with $523 million in building permits issued. Sioux Falls is on track to break that record by the end of the year.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this is fantastic news for our city and developers. It seems the economy has bounced back, for them. So as a city government we need to ask some important questions since development is doing so well.
• Should we raise platting fees so developers are putting in the 40-50% they promised originally? (Taxpayers have put in almost 13x more then developers since the 2nd penny got raised to a full penny).
• Should we limit TIF’s to affordable housing, instead of for luxury condos, big box stores and luxury hotels?
• Should there be a public amenity tax implemented on development that benefits from publicly funded frontages (River Greenway) As Don Kearney, Parks Director recently said about the RG, “The public/private property lines are virtually seamless (sic).”
• Should we continue to annex land and expand our infrastructure when there is already a lot of land within the city limits that needs to be developed or redeveloped?
• Do our zoning laws really need to be drastically changed to Shape Places, but instead be broken up in to smaller zoning laws?
It seems development is moving along swimingly in Sioux Falls, now let’s tweak it so ALL of the citizens in SF can benefit from this economic development, not just the developers.
I agree about limiting the TIPs to affordable housing including low income, and forget about the fancy places and businesses.
I’ll comment point-by-point with you:
1) Absolutely – enforce the regulations in place to replenish the plat fund.
2) TIFs should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances, such as un-developable sites of extreme public importance which have no chance to be developed otherwise. Furthermore, I’ve always had a problem with specifcally-designed affordable housing. The real way to create affordable housing is not to artificially constrain the housing supply with ridiculous density maximums, parking minimums, and setback regulations.
3) There probably should have been a direct assessment on benefiting properties from the get-go; I’m not sure of the legal ramifications of assessing such fees post facto. Couldn’t a general downtown improvement district tax function similarly? If so, I’d be in favor.
4) Amen. Introduce an urban development boundary like they have in cities like Boulder and Portland.
5) As I’ve said before, I thought Shape Places was a big step in the right direction from the antiquated, 1950s-inspired suburban monstrosity that is the old zoning document. Throw it all out and implement a form-based code like Miami did – you can read about one particular form called the Transect here.
I totally agree with what you’ve been saying for a long time on this site – all the business success in the world doesn’t mean a thing if the vast majority of the citizens of Sioux Falls are living in minimum-wage poverty.