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| Small Business Owners "Evil" to PDX |
According to The Oregonian (10-23-2011), the city of “Portland exacts the highest toll from
developers looking to change the city’s comprehensive map and rezone their
property. In fact, it’s 28 times more than Denver and 22 times higher than
Minneapolis…” Any rational human being in the Pacific Northwest thinks that
Denver and Minneapolis are kind of like Oregon and Washington in terms of
culture and politics. Dorothy got it right when she said, “Toto, I've a feeling
we're not in Kansas anymore.”
In this case, the so called
evil “developer” runs a hair salon in a garage. I don’t know about you, but
people who run a hair salon out of their garage are not “developers.” They are
simply small business owners and they make up 99.7 percent of the economy in
America, according to the Small Business Administration.
The truth of the
matter is that city of Portland can’t justify their cost of doing business.
They never ran a cost study to document it. They simply hate free market and
small business entrepreneurs. Why? You go to the local corner store or tavern
and you like it. So why punish the people you like and rely on?
Is it because the rank and
file occupiers of Portland are free loaders who want someone else to pay for their
lifestyle? I only ask the question because they don’t get it. People, you need
these small business owners. I seriously doubt you would get your hair cut and
then tell the small business owner that they are corporate fascists and your
haircut should be free.
So why is the Portland City
Council financially punishing small business owners? The answer my friend ain’t
blowing in the wind. The answer is that the state of Oregon made a decision
years ago that they needed to regulate land use more extensively. The state
created the most centralized, state run land use agency in the country. They
created a land use monarchy to run it and a land use court to interpret it. The
monarchy is called the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) and
the puppet court is called the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA).
When I was a policy analyst
for Governor Victor Atiyeh (a Republican), I called and started meeting with a
judicial member of LUBA. And I learned something amazing. He was for property
rights and small business. And he was amazed that I called him because my job,
in the Economic Development Department, was to create jobs. I won’t mention who
this LUBA judge was. The last time I did the liberal judicial community went
after him and tried to get him disbarred. Also, he invited me to his house the next
month and at this point I don’t want to pass up a good party.
Richard
Carson is a former planning director of Metro (the Portland regional
government); director of land use for Oregon City, Oregon and Clark County,
Washington; policy analyst for Governor’s Atiyeh, Goldschmidt and Roberts; and
is a doctorate student at Washington State University in organizational
development.
Posts
Hi Victoria,
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the pizza guy a decade ago who wanted to move across the street to a bigger location and the city wanted him to pay about $28,000.00.
As part of the green, closed system economy these people think they are creating, these planning and system development fees are the replacement for real economic activity. Like most "closed" sytems, it's not closed as the economic demands on the system, like illegal aliens and public employee pay and benefits, are not restricted to match what the system produces.
Land use laws were used to promote high density urban areas, obstensibly to protect farm land, but state regulations are working to make agricultural activites too expensive.
So, what we got was high density living with increased crime, poverty, inflated land values, and heavy restrictions on economic growth. I guess government benefitted from the increased property taxes, but I don't see any benefits for average citizens. Oh yeah, I forgot...."snout" houses in Portland were outlawed. What was I thinking, I take it all back. : )
It's a lot easier to meet those 2020 carbon goals if you make less to begin with. Of course, the result is an economic black hole that used to be a vibrant economic center. At some point, Portland and Occupy Portland become indistinguishable from each other.