Good land use planning doesn't just mean saying NO

It also means we empower people to do the things we have planned for. 

Not In My Back Yard, in Medford, Oregon. A thousand people signed the petition: No neighborhood grocery. No gas station. No car wash.

There is something big at stake: the credibility of a city's zoning.

Site of future development

The whole idea of zoning is to allow people to make informed choices about real estate decisions, and to protect the overall safety and enjoyment of a community. Zoning doesn't just mean saying no. It also means saying yes

Some uses of land are inherently troublesome, some more than others.

A simple example is rock crushing for the purpose of making gravel. Crushed rock is a key ingredient in roads and in concrete. Every street uses it. Every home uses it. No one can conscientiously "oppose crushed rock" because construction is impossible without it. But rock crushing is noisy and usually dusty and the facilities are serviced by large dump trucks. They are bad neighbors for a residence, yet essential for those residences. The zoning solution is to forbid rock crushing facilities in residential neighborhoods, but to allow them in open spaces that have rocks suitable for crushing, and then to protect the ability of the rock crushing to take place in those areas zoned for them. It isn't just saying 'no.' It is saying 'yes,' too.

By having permitted uses of certain activities in certain zones people can make rational decisions about buying and selling land, and deciding where to live. A person who wants to build a store or gas station or rock crushing facility can find land where that is an acknowledged use, and pay the price for the land knowing that permission has been granted in advance for that. Simultaneously, a person wanting a single family home has a heads up on what activities might be permitted and forbidden on their neighbor's land. They can also observe the obvious: whether their street is a quiet circle or whether it is an arterial street, and whether the city has prepared a vacant area for a park, for more single family homes, or for something commercial.

McAndrews Road at Springbrook. Vacant land doesn't stay vacant forever. (Unless you buy it and decide you want to keep it vacant. Then it does.)

For years there was a large vacant lot at the corner of two large and busy streets. The property was fenced with a farm-type wire fence. From time to time a horse was pastured there, a holdover and reminder of the rural nature of the area sixty years prior, before a big high school was built and the homes around the vacant lot were developed. The area has been filling in, single family residences replacing vacant land, and recently a 4 story assisted living residence.

On one side is McAndrews Road, one of the large east-west collector street, four lanes in that area, bringing people from residential neighborhoods on both sides of town down to the commercial business district, the malls, the state highways and the freeways. On another side Springbrook Street goes north-south, a wide two lane collector, bringing people to the High School and the east-west arterials. The corner has high traffic count and the infrastructure to support it. Wide streets, curbs, gutters, storm drains, signals.

On their way to something

After public hearings and public deliberations the one-plus acre parcel was zoned for a commercial development. This was no secret. The zoning was public knowledge,  and the growth of the city made this the obvious future. The area was filling in. A development was proposed: a grocery store, gas station, and car wash.

The neighbors said NO. Not In My Back Yard. NIMBY. People in the neighborhood organized opposition, gathered signatures to a petition and attended hearings in mass. The objecting neighbors buy food, buy gasoline, and wash their cars, but they didn't want a facility that provides those services next door to them. Down the street might be really handy, but next door, no. 

They appealed to the Site Plan Architectural Commission, the city body that reviews architectural features for developments, and there the weight of an aroused public had influence. The SPAC body denied the project. The project appealed to the Medford City Council, which held a hearing. The council chambers were filled with aroused citizens, and all the voices speaking up were in opposition. 

They are deciding what to do. The temptation will be to accommodate the neighbors. Twenty years prior the citizens in NW Medford recalled a Council member who voted to allow a drug treatment center to expand, over the objections of the neighbors. (Every other city council person voted to disallow it, citing traffic the ten-person facility might cause, notwithstanding allowing a Costco to be built down the street. It was a total, cynical cave-in.) As a practical matter, a grocery, gas station, and car wash will likely reduce traffic, since currently people in a two mile radius need to drive past the proposed development to go two additional miles to get those services. Still, the citizens were aroused and they were in the faces of the Council members. Not in their back yards.

Across the street. They might find a store handy.

The former hearings at which the land at the corner of McAndrews and Springbrook was zoned commercial were also the "voice of the people." The City Council, carefully and in consideration of the overall public good, made clear to everyone the future potential use of that land. People who didn't want to live near a grocery store or gas station had every opportunity to move or to sell their land to people who wanted the convenience of nearby services.  Everyone had the same heads up. 

Years ago, when the Council zoned the land, they made a reasonable decision through a public process. They made a reasonable decision that people in neighborhoods need commercial services, and that it is better for everyone if those services are nearby, and the correct place to put them is at intersections where people are going anyway, and where the infrastructure is ready to accommodate them.  Places like the corner of McAndrews and Springbrook.

What will they sell there? Presumably the store will stock what people will buy. That is what smart store owners do. If people want thirty brands of olive oil, that is what they will stock. If they want fancy beers, that is what they will stock. 

People in the neighborhood buy gasoline. If they don't buy it there they will drive past the station to buy it elsewhere. If people persist in not wanting to buy gasoline there, then the station will close. Same with the car wash. The development is running a business and they will service the needs of the neighborhood, or some other business--a pharmacy or hair salon or something else--will replace the businesses that fail to serve the neighborhood's needs.

What better place for a neighborhood grocery and gas station than right there, at a place set up to accommodate it?

Either zoning means something or it doesn't. If the Council caves, it means no one can count on anything. It means that whoever can fill an auditorium gets what they want. That can turn around and bite.