The development community in Pittsburgh suddenly has become all complimentary of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s decision to place a cap on an outrageously increased zoning review fee.
But the reality is, that’s akin to lauding a highwayman for not taking all the money from the stagecoach he’s holding up.
These same developers were up in arms when the Gainey administration early this year imposed a twentyfold increase in the charge to commercial developers to review their projects for zoning compliance.
“Arbitrary, capricious and improper!” railed the huers and criers.
Patently “illegal!” they raised their voices in unison, adding, “It’s against the law!”
Grabbing the thin bars of their banding-together cages, they shook them to a rattling crescendo. And in their best impression of cartoon rooster icon Foghorn Leghorn, they intoned “We say, we say, we say we’ll sue!”
Critics claimed the fee increase was being used as a revenue-generator, something forbidden by the law. Administration supporters, however, maintained the fee increase was necessary to cover the costs of those zoning reviews, supposedly a money-losing operation.
But now, even though the high rate remains in place — $3 per $1,000 of project cost but now with a $40,000 cap – developers appear to be pulling in their claws and engaged in a group purr.
Never mind that, as the Post-Gazette points out one example, a proposed project that would have been charged $14,050 for a zoning review under the old regulations regimen now will be charged $40,000.
Indeed, that’s a far cry from the estimated $285,000 it would have been charged had the Gainey administration not retreated and imposed the cap. But it’s still a nearly 185 percent increase.
And as the P-G’s Mark Belko further notes, even with the $40,000 cap, Pittsburgh’s zoning review fee will be far higher than in Columbus, Ohio; Philadelphia; Raleigh, N.C.; Nashville and Charlotte.
“The only city in the survey that would be higher now is Portland, Ore., at $48,554,” Belko reports.
Why would, and why should, any commercial developer consider Pittsburgh?
Again, the Gainey administration insists that it could not cover zoning review costs under the old fee structure.
But local developers, suddenly so fawning now that their pockets aren’t being turned out as fully as the initial proposal would have, should be demanding that Pittsburgh officials fully explain why they can’t deliver the cost efficiencies of other locales for such a review.
After all, robbing less is still robbery.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
