Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Zoning, Out

There is an ugly battle brewing over a proposed grocery store, bank, restaurant and gas station development proposal in West Racine. Racine Post broke the story. Read it here.

Battles such as these are avoidable. Remember zoning? Zoning laws should prevent these problems. Areas are zoned for particular uses. There are zones for businesses, residential, industrial etc... and so long as the proposed property use is consistent with the zoning rules, well, then we should have nothing to fight about.

But our politicians can't leave well enough alone. They want an ever increasing role in our lives. It seems as if more and more business decisions are now in the hands of politicians and fewer and fewer in the hands of entrepreneurs. This may be all well and good for power hungry politicians, but it serves no purpose for the community. Expect more and uglier fights over property uses. And expect less entrepreneurial actity and fewer jobs in Racine.

3 comments:

John said...

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why Spangenberg is so vehemently opposed to the project. That property has been a vacant lot for almost 10 years. And why would he hold secret meetings to limit what can built on there? Can anyone build any project in Racine?

Anonymous said...

The buildings have only been gone for three years and the other portion was a park that had been "vacant" forever because it was a park.

Anonymous said...

City bought the property 9 years go. Why has nothing been down with it? I thought it was Spangenberg's job to bring development not block it.