Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
In the last three decades, I suppose I've been to 100, maybe 150 meetings on new developments in the central city. At only four of those did I feel there was any chance to alter, much less block, what was on the table.
By the time developers are willing to have a public meeting, they're way too invested to change anything about the project. Once in a blue moon, the howls of protest from voters are so loud that the alderman will take notice and push back at the developer or the mayor's office. And in some outlying wards, aldermen do engineer more early negotiation with residents. But this idea that NIMBYs (or even aldermen) somehow determine what gets built, at least in the central area, is a complete chimera, a mythical creature found only in this forum.
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Quoted for truth, and this is true of how the process works in most cities with few exceptions. I'm also confused by this bizarre tone that somehow local government oversight is some kind of intrusion into the divine right of developers. Local government
is the process, at least in theory. In practice, it is rare that a developer doesn't get most of what they want. This idea of poor, embattled developers doesn't hold weight in what I've experienced.