Well, the LEDC finally had an appraisal done. They discovered that the 87.61 acres they are looking to dump are valued at $2,630,000. That comes out to $30,000 per acre, almost on the nose [see page 102].
Not too long ago, the LEDC smoked enough weed to convince themselves their land was worth more like $130,000 per acre….which I ridiculed mercilessly:
LEDC Apparently Smoking Weed Now. Values “Business Pork” Land at $130,000 Per Acre. [September 2022]
If you extrapolate that out, it values the entire park at around $5 million. The appraisers also said the “best use” for this goat patch is for “single family residential.”
Seeing as how they have blown over $7.5 million on it, you can see what an unmitigated disaster the entire thing has been. Talbert should resign tonight in shame, but that won’t happen. She has no shame.
So after TWENTY YEARS and tens of thousands of manhours wasted by the LEDC and City council, they recommend letting houses be built there. Wow. Cool. Hundreds of more houses. I’m betting these geniuses will STILL not charge a $5,000 impact fee on each home, so that means MORE stress on the water and wastewater infrastructure. WE get to pay for that!
Oh, more traffic too!
The funny thing is they could have done absolutely nothing 20 years ago, and these homes would have come along anyways – and likely much sooner. They missed out on 20 years of property taxes as a result.
It’s really hard to overstate what a gigantic fuckup the whole thing was on multiple levels.
Oh wait – but what about the secret “two businesses” that are “just about to move into the park” any day now, which Talbert refused to divulge to Haider 60 days ago at a council meeting? Who is going to break the news to those two big, huge, jobs-providing companies that are now out of luck?!?
LOL. Just kidding. There were never any serious prospects this entire time! April Fools, suckers!!
P.S. – also, if I’m not mistaken, they brought up this “residential housing” idea before and it was shot down because of something to do with how the loans were taken out. This was envisioned as an “economic development” thing and certain requirements had to be met for certain breaks to be given. Otherwise, this was simple land speculation gone horribly badly.
I honestly don’t remember the specifics but it may not be a simple “lets put houses there” in the end. We’ll see.