Baby Gap Uber Alles? Or Why Atlantans are Getting Malled Through the Zone!
Enough with the Malls already! The same thing is happening all over Atlanta. Tons of malls are going up. They are being called “New Urban Shopping Districts”, but really, they’re malls. Not only are they reducing already depleted green space, but in almost every case, there are no community amenities in these things. Joni Mitchell would be so proud! There are no libraries, no live theatres, music halls, houses of worship, parks, or government offices. They in no way help the public or serve people who do not have a direct shopping interest in the location.
This is a complete failure of zoning. It’s not even a lack of zoning. Houston had that for years and seems to have done at least as well. No. This is what happens when zoning fails completely; when the exceptions are the rule. Neighborhood Planning Units have concerns? Buy off whomever you need to in order to get your project built. Moreover, the fact that there are literally scores of governments through which you can manuveur means you can pit one against another! Want to build in Dunwoody but the Dekalb County Commission won’t give you as many housing units as you’d like? Move to Sandy Springs! Each government wants development so badly, developers play the system.
Because no agency with power has the ability to look across even civic lines, let alone county ones, Developers have a built in guarantee of success! The collected interest of the people of Metro Atlanta don’t stand a chance.
Who will stop the madness? Certainly not the state. Sales Tax revenue uber alles is the watch word for this Governor! No retail project be denied!
What would it take to fix this? A uniform code of zoning for the state and giving the Atlanta Regional Commission power of zoning over everything except the City of Atlanta, which, because it has the urban core, faces a completely different set of challenges.
This uniform code should mandate green space preservation, that projects first serve socio-economically under served areas, and that all projects have a truly substantial public component. Want to build 250,000 sq feet of retail space with yet another Publix and Baby Gap? Fine! But Dad’s Garage needs 10% of your space for a new theater complex and room for another Department of Labor branch would be nice too.
Any chance the legislature would actually give the ARC this power? Nahh….. So, eventually, one of 3 Federal restrictions will come crashing down.
1) It might be the EPA. Our regions’ air quality may get so bad that all development must depend on non vehicular improvements to let it go forward. We might lose highway money and if you can’t build a street, you can move your development forward.
2) It might be the Army Corps of Engineers who declare that they’ll release no more water to Georgia. No water, no development
3) It might be federal courts who look at this madness and enjoin any non federal government from issuing a construction permit until the water and pollution mess can be worked out.
What would happen if we really did restrict new retail growth? First, older retail spaces would be remodeled and updated. Places like South Dekalb Mall, Market Square at North Dekalb, and North East Plaza would find their space much more valuable. Second, our smaller towns would continue to see their previously existing retail space grow more valuable and would revitalized. New development that did occur would be much more community oriented and actually take the concerns of the community into account.
The downside? Retail rents would likely go up making it harder for independents to compete. Underserved communities might still not get as much attention as they deserve and close scrutiny might well be required to limit the amount of graft. In the long run however, we might have fewer abandon strip shopping centers and those shopping centers that were built would have a stronger community focus. That’s worth it.
September 26th, 2006 at 2:27 am
(Sigh)…no wonder people are leaving Atlanta in droves. There’s even been former-Atlantan sightings in Malibu; people who are culturally utterly out of place and furiously attempt to work on their regionally neutral dialects so they can one day seem like west-coast natives. Maybe the proposed “Immigration Control Wall” should be erected north to south, keeping everyone east of New Mexico at bay…lol…
w
September 27th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
I vaguely remember posting about ’strip mall 2.x’ — developments consisting of ’shit retail’ (featuring at least one Moe’s and similar xenomorphed chains) with a condo tower, apartments, and/or a parking deck. Basically, a shop’s inclusion in such a development implies the shop sucks.
Alternately, I’ve described this concept as “cow pie in a green wrapper”, which is how the whole ‘mixed use’ concept is translated into actual development.
‘Soulless’ would be the most succinct description of both the people in charge of zoning around here, and the results they generate.
October 4th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Um, no. Oregon is the only state in the union with this type of metro government/statewide zoning. It has caused a huge property owner backlash which is undermining all of land use planning. (Measure 37).
What does need to happen is that the state allocate resources to help fix the ground transportation problems.
ARC or the “Atlanta Regional County Commissioners” as they should be known can’t even encourage counties to utilize their livable centers initiatives. Metro city governments on the other hand are redeveloping and marrying transit with city centers that have real mixed use. See Decatur, Smyrna, Suwanee, etc.
The drive for new cities like Sandy Springs is coming from desire for local control of the character of smaller communities. Don’t kill the only thing going that is helping-local control.
If you want to end sprawl, curtail the power of arrogant hypocritical county comissions.