Sancho's Broken Arrow was always worth a trip for a show.
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Sancho's Broken Arrow was always worth a trip for a show.
Sancho's always felt like where the hippies went to play dive bar. Actually one of my least favorite.
Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse
That's it PS Lounge
Berkley Inn
Lakeview Inn?
Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse
The headline quote is hilarious on its own, but the bureaucracy tale may show some underlying issues with increasing supply of low income housing:
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/05/1...-construction/
Sounds like a Portland problem. We need a Federal standard because each metro area has their own version of helping low income buyers. Colorado provides grants to everyone that can lower the purchase price or help with down payment. Florida is the exact opposite, you have to work in civil service or be a veteran. Meatball Ron is rolling it out to everyone on July 1st to help his chances in the upcoming gop goomba fight so hopefully it will last past the election when he loses.
I don't dispute any of the facts in there or the fact that Portland might have a bureaucracy problem. What bothers me about the article, other than the journalist trying to be funny rather than reporting, is that we're led to believe that the Mitchell St project was derailed by bureaucracy. However, when you read the article, all that they discuss about that project was a single permit application that got misplaced (which sucks, sure, but is hardly "hacking through a thicket of city bureaucracy thornier than the invasive Armenian blackberries that entwined part of the property"); the rest of the permits were in place when he purchased the lot. It sounds like most of the problems with the project were actually just that the delay due to the misplaced application came at a terrible time, when supply chain issues and Portland problems fucked everything up.
Again, the concept in there is sound, and some of the discussion of the permitting requirements, are a PITA. And it sounds like the guy went through that experience with another property mentioned at the bottom. But the property they use as a case study? Where's all the terrible details on that one? The author was too in love with being funny over actually reporting.
Also the article takes as fact the city is out of money, and that’s why the city officials are so swamped, but they just spend all their money on the police department. That’s a choice, not a reality.
I just went to a city council meeting where they approved $2 mil for a new plane for the cops. That buys a lot of paper pushers in the planning department.
That’s not just a Portland problem, though. I think the blue lives shit has really warped the way cities think about police and everyone is afraid of holding them accountable for their budgets which may get them criticized for “defunding the police”
Boulder County use to require 10% low income housing on any new development within the development. So when places like Four Mile Creek went in they put low income duplexes facing Valmont, when Peloton went up the expensive lofts faced Arapahoe and the low income was buried in the back. 10 years ago they stopped that practice and allowed builders to build only high end properties and then put low income on another site.
It can be extremely frustrating to have a single minor permit, or easily resolvable comment hold up the permitting/construction of a multimillion dollar project, and no one responsible at the jurisdiction can be bothered to give you a straight answer or status update for months on end despite hundreds of unreturned emails and voicemails. When you have to raise a stink all the way to the mayors office because no one below that was able to FITFO and give you a straight answer for a period of months, i would certainly describe it as a bureaucratic clusterfuck... or more artfully put "bureaucracy thornier than the invasive Armenian blackberries".
All that said, i bet this guy was picked because he had a development horror story about affordable housing, and someone probably said "he's a character and will give you some great quotes".
I have no doubt that he was frustrated AF, and rightfully so. But we don't really know exactly what happened, all they say is he waited and waited and was frustrated, and the office was closed because of covid, but he finally found out that it had been misplaced. Again, not saying he doesn't have a horror story and not saying that the city's permitting doesn't suck, I am more saying that the article sucks. It doesn't even say he called and called, it just says he waited and waited. And it seems like we're supposed to accept that all the externalities beyond the city's control are somehow the city's fault.
There are a lot of drama queens in the Contractor sector.
Yep. I'd also be curious on his prior history with planning as often you find out these folks are the same that break any number of rules or aren't helpful/collaborative at all.
There's some developers that are a joy to deal with even if they're tough, but most are pretty uninformed and get moody when you make them follow the same process as others.
It's usually less that and more "we're no longer going to hold your hand through the process as you've been through it many times and you talk shit to our people every time. "
Either that or he's not paying his engineers bills so they aren't chasing it down for free (seen that a bunch too).
This is the most telling part of that article:
"A report by Redfin last July showed Portland’s builders aren’t pulling permits fast enough to meet demand. For single-family houses, builders pulled just 7.6 permits per 10,000 residents in the first quarter of 2022. By contrast, builders in Austin, Texas, took out 31.1 permits per 10,000 residents, leading the nation, according to Redfin."
Regardless of misplacing permits and general incompetence, places like Portland are simply not approving new construction fast enough to keep up with demands (which increases housing costs and exasperates the city's terrible homeless problem).
Portland city auditor has some opinions:https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/...itors-say.html
A report from the City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero’s office last March found that slow permit reviews could slow the city’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and hamper the production of much-needed housing. It placed much of the blame on a lack of coordination between the many city bureaus that must weigh in on each proposal. And it said a slapdash approach to customer complaints only further ratcheted up frustrations.
Last month, it took the city about twice as long to evaluate permit applications than its goal — nearly 200 days, for example, to grant a permit for a new commercial building compared to its goal of 71 days. A typical permit for a home alteration should take just 27 days to approve but in each of the past 12 months has taken more than 50.
That's from last year.
I highly doubt a developer is just going to sit around and watch six figures of capital just wither on the vine without trying to do something about it.
I'm developer guy would love to not have to pull a permit at all but this is 100% a problem of the cities making. Planning departments are notorious for blatant "we're not happy unless you're not happy" culture.
I owe an engineer 10k. Debating on paying them all they did was a pretty picture
Tge building and planning depts are understaffed and could care less about any risk a developer owner or contractor has taken they wake up w no financial risk to their existence at work
Must be a nice feeling to have no pressure or concern when you goto work every day
Any developers out there clamoring to pay extra for expediting? No? Any signing up for a risk-sharing group that covers when shit goes sideways like that housing development that had a house slide off a cliff? No? Shut up and sit in line.
Plenty of issues with planning departments, but plenty of delays can be traced back to regulations that only exist because of shitty developer and contractor behavior. Those same people bitching about the timing I guarantee bitch to high heaven about their tax bills, yet don't connect the dots on the two. I'm not here to defend all city government of all stripes (yes, plenty of shitty behavior), but a lot of it stems from them only being able to do wrong and never right in the populace's eyes, so why be proactive?
Constantly. I have 3 projects where the developer has offered exactly that in the last couple months, at meetings with the AHJ. they are more than happy to pay 3d party reviewers, OT, whatever... just dont fucking take 6-8months for a review cycle when the code states it should take 6-8 weeks. When the developer has financing for a multimillion dollar project riding on hitting permit deadlines and the jurisdiction is dragging their feet they wouldnt think twice about paying $5k overtime, or $10k to a 3rd party reviewer. On-call 3rd party reviews for expedited reviews should be a thing for every AHJ... it would really solve a lot issues.
IME there are 2 types of reviewers in situations like this: The motivated but crazy overworked understaffed reviewer who does their best but is just constantly underwater with constant staff turnover and doing their best to plug leakes. And then the warm body filling a desk who was either quickly hired to plug a hole and is utterly imcompetent and/or lazy, or the graybeard who has been their for decades and is just coasting into retirement and does the absolute minimum to avoid a firing with cause.