[epistasis]

First, that's not an example of negative effects being banned and then developers getting around it.

Instead you are saying that some people wanted a particular land use on a parcel, bet then a different land use showed up. Lots of VeryNiceIdea have nobody around to execute the idea and actually make it happen. When an abandoned lumberyard next to lots of homes in my area had a proposal for condos, neighbors were livid at the homes, and refused the zoning change. Instead people asked for a music center for senior citizens, but nobody stepped up to raise the money to build something like that.

[sorcerer-mar]

I guess it depends on your definition of "blocking" or "banned." If StupidBullshit had been proposed, it would've been blocked. Instead, they bait-and-switched with something else.

Yeah that's a frustrating and stupid example.

[epistasis]

I still have no concrete idea of what you are talking about. You say it happens all the time, but I have not seen it. One person's "StupidBullshit" could be another person's "AmazingIdea" or it could be "StupidBullshit" to 99.999% of people, but without actually knowing what you're referring to it's impossible to know.

For example, there's tons of things that I love that others consider "StupidBullshit": book stores, game shops, live music venues, etc. In my town, a brewery in an industrially zoned area got exceptions to start allow serving beer and food, then a temporary one to allow live music. It's great. Then a shop owner next door shut down the extension that allowed live music because they thought that in the next 10 years there's a chance they might be allowed to build apartments, and that the live music permit should not be allowed because of that potential. 2 years of dragging out the permitting process continued, because a few people thought a beloved music venue was StupidBullshit.

That's the closest example to what you're talking about that I can think of, and it doesn't even involve developers. So I'm very skeptical about the public process of deciding "StupidBullshit," and have not once seen it turn out positively. Like, literally zero times. And I've been following land use in my city very closely for the past decade.

[sorcerer-mar]

In your city, is every project that gets built pretty much identical to what was proposed during the rezoning process?

[epistasis]

Yes, of course it is. There's very little rezoning to begin with, and it's extremely constrained. In fact, the opposition to rezoning exaggerates what heights are possible to such an extent that what actually results is quite disappointing in how little new housing shows up.

I'm concluding by your refusal to give examples that perhaps you have none to share. Especially when my repeated questioning meets more questions from you in return. Let me ask plainly: do you have a single concrete example of your complaint about developers?

[sorcerer-mar]

That’s extremely odd! It’s strange to ask for specific examples because it is quite the norm for actual built developments to differ drastically from their proposed versions.

Anyway, here’s a notable one: https://www.mas.org/news/op-ed-lets-not-repeat-the-unintende...

2001 LIC was rezoned under the premise of creating a central business district, luxury residential high rises took over instead.

Zoning rarely constrains the outcome as specifically as people wish it would while considering rezoning, ergo the default behavior is for the ultimate construction not to match what was proposed during rezoning. I frankly don’t believe you when you say this doesn’t happen where you are. Could you tell me where that is so I can understand how they achieve it?

Here’s a review of this pattern: https://media.villagepreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/202...