London Construction - Development News Thread #1

[Highinthesky]

Long term thinking is great but not always practical. What's the old Saying? Reality is 90% perception. The perception among business owners and the general public is that there is insufficient parking downtown. Changing of zoning by-laws alone won't change this perception and as long as the perception persists then downtown shop keepers and owners of office space will have trouble generating enough business. This will keel land values lower and hurt the business case for any kind of future development downtown.

The best long term vision imo is to allow the downtown real estate market to be a free market without intervention from City Hall. In the immediate short term that might mean ugly surface parking lots but those lots will change the perception about downtown and in turn that will drive up demand and drive up prices. Once those prices go up those ugly surface lots will be redeveloped as investors determine that the land is worth to much to use as parking space.

If the realities of the local market in Downtown London were that land is too valuable to use as parking space there wouldn't be talk of more surface lots.