There it was in today’s Albuquerque Journal business section, yet another business having trouble with burdensome regulations in Albuquerque. Said Roy Solomon, developer of the Green Jeans Farmery, a new development that is struggling with permitting issues at the City, “I’m not going to do another project in this town, ever, ever again.” Ouch.
Worse, this is not the first time a businessman has said something similar about Albuquerque. According to an Albuquerque Journal story from February, Suzanne Lubar of the City’s Planning Department said of the City’s zoning structure, “Nobody has a true sense of what’s allowed and what’s not allowed…It’s not very predictable. I had developers calling and saying, I will never do a development in your city again.”
Of course the zoning and land use planning issue are not the City’s only problems, taxes are on the rise (again), the minimum wage is one of the highest in the nation in real terms, and then there are the recent high-profile violent crimes.
The big “solution” from the Mayor of our City is to foist a costly new bus system on the City’s taxpayers and a long list of businesses in the Central corridor that oppose the project.
Perhaps our City should get the basics like public safety and permitting done in a manner that helps rather than hinders the economy before it embraces a massive and expensive redevelopment of Central Avenue? How about it Mayor Berrry?
I served on the board of a successful public-private economic development organization in a suburb of Chicago. One of the keys to success was working with every new or incoming business to fast-track zoning changes, building permits and business licenses. This is economic development 101.
It is times like this that I think our politicians have completely lost touch with reality. The Mayor and City Council seem to have joined together to make sure our city is the first to cross the finish line of self destruction in New Mexico. (I think it is a dead heat with Santa Fe right now.) If I were the Mayor and read a news report that nobody knows what is allowed and what is not and that business people are saying that they will never do another development in our city, I would be finding out what the heck is going on and fix it!
Rather than fixing the process and make it easier to go into and grow business, the Mayor et al. raise taxes and foist another expensive government program that won’t work onto the long suffering taxpayers who will eventually give up and leave as many have already done.
It simply defies logic.
When Richardson left NM, he left behind 2 big financial black holes for his legacy, the Space Port and the Rail Runner. Why is Mayor Berry following the same track record, does he figure he could ride the brief economic bubble to the governors office?