Tacoma considering change in code to attract business
Tacoma’s City Council wants to modify the current zoning law to attract new business to many of Tacoma’s neighborhoods. The Council hopes to make Tacoma more attractive by easing height and building limitations.
In a recent article by Peter Callaghan, one of the central issues to the new re-zoning plan is balancing the goal of having attractive, well-built development vs. the ability for developers to have projects that “pencil” (meaning that a project can be projected to be profitable).
What the article does not discuss, curiously, are the impacts on development by state environmental agencies. Often times, it is the extra cost involved with preparing environmental studies and altering business practices to meet regulatory standards which impacts whether a project is ultimately profitable.