[someone123]

Preventing developers from building retail on side streets won't necessarily force it to happen on Agricola, particularly if development on side streets is slowed down or halted for relatively minor reasons. Overbuilding retail space isn't necessarily bad either; it drives down rents for businesses.

The zoning thing is a red herring. Zoning is meant to evolve over time, which is why there are processes in place to amend it and issue variances. If anything we should be skeptical of dogmatically following the current planning rules that are in place in the North End because many of them are seriously outdated. A lot of the planning rules the city still has on its books now are the same ones that caused this part of down to seriously decline in the 70's and 80's.