Pay for the enitre development
To the Pickerington area residents:
The webmaster has posted a two news articles that was published in the Columbus Dispatch over the weekend and today. It talked about the problems now facing not only the merchants of the Brice road area but the residents and shoppers there. Clearly, Columbus has allowed this area to develop with all types of stores. For some reason retailers, left to their own means, all want to locate their new store very near their competitor?’s store.
This trend in retailing has concerned me for years now. It is taught in our Universities and practiced by most chain type stores. We are seeing that here in Pickerington. I believe we have just allowed a new Drug Discount Store to be built on Hill Road while the Drug Emporium is closing. We now have two retail pharmacies sitting empty. It appears we will soon have the Big Bear store sitting empty before Christmas. The question we all must ask ourselves is as a community can we restrict the number and types of retail developments into our areas? Does it do us any good to give a 30 TIF to a Wal-Mart and it causes another store to close? We restrict the square footage of homes why can?’t we restrict the square footage of the retail development?
If we look at the business cycle of the Brice Road business parks we see that it took them years to develop and now they are losing stores to of all places the Pickerington/Reynoldsburg areas. They now have rising crime levels and very congested traffic. All because the governing body allowed the retail developers to build what they wanted when they wanted. In the Brice road area you have strip malls with high vacancies you have empty home improvement stores and a general deterioration of the quality of life in the area.
We have a new city government about to take office in January. Clearly a long and hard look at our zoning code book and how it affects our community?’s quality of life should be explored once we are in office.
Let me throw out an example: The city wants to commission a traffic study. If say Hill Road north can handle 800 cars per hour then couldn?’t we factor in the affect of a 100,000 square foot retail store as part of the planning for traffic loads on that highway? Clearly if the resident must go to work in another city then they will also be traveling that same road?
My point is that for far too long we have looked at the development of our city as developer lead. That policy has cost the local taxpayers millions in new schools and road improvements. That is not to mention the aggravation of the long wait to get on I-70 in the mornings.
Please take the time now to read a BRAND NEW POLICY proposed by Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman. The Columbus Mayor now, ?“Thinks that new developments should pay for themselves?”. The idea floated was that the developers build the new schools and lease them back to the school district. Commercial developers should provide the new roads and other infrastructures and factor that into the cost of doing business.
Please take the time to review this article. Your input will be needed soon.
