Quote:
Originally Posted by Obadno
I really think our city leaders are mentally deficient. Why would you not expand it up central?
Why woudl you expand the CBD into a residential neighborhood, the Ghetto and an industrial dead zone?
Wtf?
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The state legislature passed a law limiting cities' ability to gerrymander their CBDs a few years back. Among the requirements are that the CBD must be "compact," can't be more than 2.5% of total city area, and can't be more than twice as long as it is wide. So they likely could not, for instance, have expanded it all the way north to Camelback.
With that said, the original proposal was to expand it to be a cohesive rectangle, from Thomas down to Broadway, and 23rd Ave over to 7th St. After that was proposed back in February-ish, it appears the interested parties got their hooks in a chopped it up. My assumption is Willo/Encanto/Coronado opposed, and the council didn't have the juice to fight them (but that is an assumption).
The CBD designation is mostly expanding the council's ability to give GPLETs and things to developments, and I imagine expanding development south will be easier than expanding north. I also like the idea of eventually expanding down to the river. But that has been an option for decades and hasn't happened, so you're probably right that the long-term problems with developing that direction aren't going to be fixed by this.