This is a “live blog” of sorts meaning that I re-watched the 3/30 taping of Business Matters and I sort of stream of consciousness blogged as I did so writing whatever came up.
Watch the show here: Business Matters – FedEx Jobs vs. NIMBY Syndrome – What wins?
Don Cunningham LVEDC – 2:30 minute mark – NIMBY. “A project is going to happen there”. I’ll throw Cunningham a bone here since I’m mostly critical of the narratives he utilizes. Made this point in a post couple weeks ago. Using the NIMBY term here has some merit. Why? Because the land has been zoned a certain way consistent with regional planning for years. It’s adjacent to an airport and close to the spine infrastructure. Very different from the LMT Jaindl issue where we had a rezoning fight. For 23 in LMT an area was zoned agriculture protected in accordance with regional plans representing smart growth boundaries laid out in the 80’s. People bought homes assuming it would remain agriculture. Also the LMT warehouses are significantly further from the infrastructure spine. Quarry threat plus local officials rolling over were the reasons zoning changed. In our case, arguments weren’t NIMBY but rather about the rights of a community to protect itself.
8:30 minute mark – Here Cunningham refers to a community needing to adjust infrastructure. He refers to Bethlehem Steel infrastructure on former Moravian farmland. Unfair comparison. Warehouses are different then a mega manufacturing hub located in a growing city core. When Bethlehem Steel was built new infrastructure served the city not just a single project. It was inevitable that Bethlehem would expand. New infrastructure serviced entire neighborhoods surrounding the plant. It was efficient use of community resources. Excellent ROI. The locations where warehouses are often built is often the very definition of sprawl. They are frequently directly (or indirectly) subsidized by taxpayers at a premium since the infrastructure serves only one purpose. I get where Cunningham was trying to go here. But using Bethlehem Steel was a major stretch. The political economy of sprawl.
Bethlehem Steel at its height employed over 31,000 people. It maximized the city’s infrastructure investment in a way we just don’t often see today. Allentown’s city center project would be today’s example of this kind of transformative project. The comparison of Bethlehem Steel to warehouses is totally ridiculous.
11:00 minute mark – Cunningham uses “private property rights” in a way that is misleading at best and pandering at worse. It’s insinuates zoning laws in the United States are a one way street which isn’t the case. We have a century long history of zoning. Zoning laws were created to protect the rights of neighbors on equal footing of land owners. Zoning started in New York City in response to the advent of skyscrapers. If you live in a neighborhood someone can’t come in and build an undesirable use next to your home if you have the protection of zoning and you purchased a house with reasonable assumptions based on that zoning. This is how people were screwed in Lower Macungie.
Bob Heimbecker Hanover Township Council – “Someone is dropping off a foster child on our front doorstep” – Mr. Heimbeckers points are largely valid IMO. Mr. Heimbecker seems like a really thoughtful local official looking our for his residents.
Becky Bradley – Lehigh Valley Planning Commission – Bradley correctly points out that baseline infrastructure exists here. I like to refer to this as the spine. That includes proximity to airport and highway. Sidenote: Becky is the new Director of LVPC. She’s a refreshing new voice vs. prior leadership. Becky also correctly makes the point multiple times that this particular project is in line with regional planning.
I have one friendly criticism of Bradley’s commentary. (Yes, it’s easy to nit-pick from the comfort of my desk watching a replay, overall Becky was great in a pressure cooker situation of a TV taping) This relates in a way to Cunningham’s ridiculous comparison to infrastructure built for Bethlehem Steel.
Basically IMHO Becky is correct with the general notion that traffic is an indicator of a successful street. She cites level of service on 7th street. Great example. Problem is she doesn’t acknowledge that different roads serve different purposes. This is a pet peeve of mine. I write often about the context and purpose of roads, STROADS and streets. Big concept championed by strongtowns. While 7th street (street!) is a great example of a street with low-level of service being indicative of a success, comparing it to the regions most critical and important highway where moving cars quickly and efficiently is the measure of success (road!) doesn’t quite work. I also do not like referring to Rt. 22 as a “Main St.” I get why people do it but a street is not a road, a road is not a street, a street is certainly not a highway.
Roads should move cars efficiently from A-B. A successful road has a high level of service. A highway is the grandaddy of roads. Streets are a value capture mechanism. 7th street is a street. The measure of success is a dense collection of revenue producing businesses. Level of service is secondary to ROI. STROADS try to do both, and normally fail. Futons don’t work in transportation. Stroads vs. Roads vs. Streets
Bob Nappa – Concerned Resident. In general Mr. Nappa makes an organized and smart argument. In the end the historical zoning is his downfall. But he makes a good run at it. I feel for him and his neighbors I honestly do. Bigger picture though my issues with over proliferation of warehouses (going all-in and overboard on one notoriously poor ROI land use.)
About Jobs and livable wages – Job tally’s are always inflated by politicians who seek political points. I tend to think Nappa’s job figures are probably more reasonable than Cunninghams. This leads me to some questions: Are all jobs equal in terms of economic growth? What are the impacts of a local economy becoming saturated with low paying transient jobs? When politicians seek inflated tally’s of “jobs created” so they can put the number into campaign pamphlets I think important questions are ignored.
ROI – Next, something that hasn’t been a part of the discussion surrounding jobs and warehousing at least here in the Lehigh Valley is calculating a true local Return on Investment. Warehousing is a notoriously low dollar per acre return (jobs + revenue) vs. liabilities (infrastructure + services). Land is a finite resource. Our zoning should reflect that. Communities have to demand that development produces more revenue then liabilities it creates.
This concept is demonstrated in this (now famous in smart growth circles) illustration. Warehouses on this graphic would be somewhere further to the left of Wal-Mart in terms of ROI. One of the worse ROI uses of land we have. They are resource hogs that churn up land at overwhelming clips requiring mega sized and expensive infrastructure. In return they generate very little revenue or jobs /acre.
Warehouses would be to the left of a Wal-Mart in terms of value and ROI for the local community.
Engineers, economic development professionals and special interests have become skilled at concocting fluffy ROI numbers. Evaluations must be from the local government’s point of view, which means a real evaluation of dollars in verses dollars out.
Conclusions:
- Fedex might be NIMBY but Lower Macungie’s rezoning issue was not. In Lower Macungie a wealthy developer used a quarry threat to get zoning changed to something the community opposed. The change was against regional planning. The change was opposed by local residents. With FEDEX the zoning is in line with regional planning. I feel for the folks who live in this area but have to be objective.
- Warehouse pressure is here for a reason. I’m a realist about the reasons warehouses proliferated in the LV. My fear is we’re rapidly going overboard in terms of balance. Any economist will tell you a healthy economy is a diversified one. When will we hit the tipping point with distributions warehouses? Have we already?
- ROI figures are inflated and often convoluted. We need real calculation of ROI on the local level. Land development has to produce a net +.
- Warehouses will be increasingly automated. This is an indisputable fact. The already bad jobs/acre of land equation will get worse.
- A Road is not a street. A street is not a Highway. The definition of success is different.
