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February 2, 2010

Letter to the Editor -- Design review has a cost

Nice context in this article (“There's a lot to be gained in lowrise zones,” DJC Jan. 27) but you missed one thing altogether — the cost and permitting delays caused by the design review process. These come in many flavors:

• At a time when banks are loath to make land acquisition and construction loans at all, they particularly don't want to have a loan outstanding for the extra time it takes to go through design review (historically six to 10 months). Additionally, they have raised interest rates significantly. So even if they will make the loan, the extra carrying cost of this process is substantial.

• Architectural fees are easily doubled because of the multiple design option requirements and review board preparation and presentation time.

• And finally but less quantitatively, you encourage the public's misguided sense that they own your property. The whole process turns into a developer witch hunt and increases resistance by an order of magnitude. I suggest you sit in on one of those hearings if you haven't already.

So, while in a perfect world you'd like some sense of public control over a private development project, the “Design Review for All” approach runs smack in the face of affordable housing goals, not to mention our constitutional property rights. Sorry that you didn't represent your business readers' side of this argument.

Roger Penner

Foster Penner


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