Don’t rush development
Don’t rush development
Staunton City Council and other members of the city’s government agencies will face a decision of enormous importance when they ponder the best way to proceed with the commercial redevelopment of 300-plus acres surrounding Western State Hospital while providing a state-of-the-art hospital on part of the site.One thing we hope and pray the city’s leader’s don’t do is this: give carte blanche to developers just because “those are the rules the state plays by.”
Yes, lets just make another set of rules, different for each developer that comes to the area, that will encourage growth, right?
While the Public-Private Educational Infrastructure Act may allow private developers to come up with any concept for the land’s use without the city or state setting much restriction, that’s not what we should do.
Not at all.
Staunton has too often borne too great a similarity to the “girl who cain’t say no,” agreeing to put exorbitant amounts of public funds into private projects just to be done with a project. That approach is going to backfire on the city — and its residents, without which the city would neither exist nor be able to pay its bills — sooner or later.
OK, now we get to the crux of the issue. Using public funds for private projects. Why would you think that a developement that can’t fund itself in order to build is going to be able to sustain itself afterwards? I daresay very few of these types of projects fare well in the long term. Now, let a private developer in who has to fund the operation themself the whole way through, and they are going to make sure that it is a business venture that has the potential to survive. The way things have been working is basically a form of corporate welfare. Who wouldn’t take a shot at winning the pot of gold when the cost to play is lowered by the area funneling public funds into your investment?
What the city should do — and the state and developers be damned — is take the reins, control the property in perpetuity and lease the land to developers. That way, when Steak-On-A-Stick, Widgets, Inc. or whatever the Big Deal of the Moment that decides to build on our property goes bust, we won’t be stuck with another set of moldering buildings at one of Staunton’s most visible gateways. We can lease the property to another user who can then breathe new life into the area and provide the city with a renewable revenue stream.
Yes, because we all know that keeping property public is the best way to run things. When will we learn that communism doesn’t work, even in limited forms such as this? The only thing this idea will buy you is a continuous string of failures, for in order to get a private business owner to agree to this kind of deal, you’re going to have to subsidize the initial development. Thus you will continue to get what you’ve been getting.