OFFICIAL: Port Authority Riverfront Project

[beautyfromashes]

so your entire idea is flawed. you should be wanting less idea spots to be developed right now

this is why we have a massive suburb, an airport where it is and stadiums not in the core of the city. Cheap land, no regulation and less than ideal locations.

[flyingember]

and demanding an arbitrary perfect ideal downtown means we only get suburban development. that almost ruined Kansas City

we spent decades handing out tons of incentives to develop downtown
now we're getting projects without them, a huge improvement, but we're not yet to the point developers want to build downtown and the city can say no to projects

the day a 24 story tower goes up without any incentives is the day we know that's arrived. Sure, it would be nice if we had people buying parking lots at inflated prices and putting a building up, but we're nowhere near to that being possible.

So being impossible it does no good to complain about something not being the right project in the right place

[beautyfromashes]

Very laissez faire, conservative approach. Personally, I like the idea floated on here that would change the city property tax to a land tax. This would incentivize empty parking lots downtown to be built on or be sold.

[flyingember]

that will never happen. big box retailers would get hit the hardest and they would line up to go against it

[beautyfromashes]

Not if their tax outlay was the same. Why would they care whether it's called a property tax or land tax? Would disincentivize parking lots, award retails with smaller footprints, and push speculators to do something with their land or pay the price.

[FangKC]

The correct answer here is that we can build new apartments in existing downtown neighborhoods all at the same time. You are building a variety of housing types and neighborhoods that will appeal to different people for different reasons.

Building along the riverfront won't mean building in the East Village will not happen. All of these developments take time to develop and build, and won't come online all at the same time.

We getting to the point of running out of older buildings downtown to renovate into apartments, so we are going to have to start building new units.

I would argue that there has been a limited supply of decent apartments in the older core neighborhoods of Kansas City since the 1960s--to the point that the lack of decent modern apartments drives people to have to choose to live in suburban apartment complexes because they can't find what they want in the central city.

The central argument here is about choices. When I moved to KC from NYC in 2002, I had a very hard time finding a suitable apartment that met my needs in the central part of KCMO, and I was almost forced into living in an apartment in the suburbs. There just weren't that many options at the time for me. It came down to simple things that made finding a place difficult: not enough electrical outlets in each room in older apartment buildings; tiny kitchens that didn't have enough counter space, or a dishwasher; no air conditioning; tiny closets; no tub/shower combinations; no laundry room in the building; having a washer/dryer in the apartment itself; spaces that hadn't been renovated in years, or decades, etc. In some buildings, it was a matter of narrow hallways and staircases that would have made it impossible for me to get some of my furniture into the apartment. For these reasons, many options were ruled out immediately. Most people don't have unlimited time to find an apartment as they are moving from another city, or have to be out of their current apartment within a certain time-frame.

So having a lot of new choices in and around downtown is a good thing overall. It also will mean that KCMO will not lose as many residents to the suburbs because of its' older apartment building stock.

As far as demand goes, I think there will be on-going demand for units just among the over age 50 demographic for some time to come. That is the fastest-growing demographic for housing. There are many among that group that will also require units near mass transit as they age and no longer drive. Another aspect to this will be units that are in elevator buildings, or units with no stairs, and even units that meet ADA compliance as many aging people require units that are designed for aging and disability.

[flyingember]

Not if their tax outlay was the same. Why would they care whether it's called a property tax or land tax? Would disincentivize parking lots, award retails with smaller footprints, and push speculators to do something with their land or pay the price.

A land tax does have this benefit and I like it for this reason.

But it hurts someone that has a low value house in a place like Columbus Park or The Westside.

Lots go for a minimum of $120,000-150,000 in that part of town. It would instantly price nearly every long-term resident out of those neighborhoods, forcing them to move. That's not exactly the goal of the city.

[beautyfromashes]

But it hurts someone that has a low value house in a place like Columbus Park or The Westside.

Lots go for a minimum of $120,000-150,000 in that part of town. It would instantly price nearly every long-term resident out of those neighborhoods, forcing them to move. That's not exactly the goal of the city.

Yes, but house values in those areas are both increasing dramatically, raising property taxes currently. How would this be different?

[flyingember]

But it hurts someone that has a low value house in a place like Columbus Park or The Westside.

Lots go for a minimum of $120,000-150,000 in that part of town. It would instantly price nearly every long-term resident out of those neighborhoods, forcing them to move. That's not exactly the goal of the city.

Yes, but house values in those areas are both increasing dramatically, raising property taxes currently. How would this be different?

Land only has intrinsic value if people want to be on it. And if that's the basis for the value you change the development equation.

You don't get density and nice buildings because you can't build a bigger or better structure and sell it for more later. The property value doesn't go up with density or design but based who wants to move to the area.

If you can't sell a home for more than the value of the land imagine the east side with no renovations done for decades. And with empty lots with no demand to build on the value of land would plummet. So you end up with speculators buying vast tracts and holding onto it or putting up minimal quality housing. People who live there can never improve their home and earn enough to buy a home elsewhere so they're stuck. There's no reason for a landlord to do improvements they don't have to. There's no reason for them to maintain a historic property, better off to get it condemned than deal with the high cost of a historic renovation. Urban infill housing becomes nearly impossible.

Remember the white flight from KC? Imagine that but with the property value of those homes crashing.

Areas people want to move to with higher demand moving wealth into the suburbs would result in speculation based on where, not based on the quality of the home. For the suburbs you would end up with a lot of denser but very low quality homes.

You would end up with bigger real estate bubbles and more often as speculators buy land hoping people want to move there. They sell to the next person hoping the value is going up, and so on. So you end up with a lot of people building on land they can never make back the value on if they buy at the wrong time, far worse than with any home, because the value will depend on if they picked the right neighborhood years or decades back.

[pash]

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[flyingember]

The value of property is already supposed to be based on nearby properties. It's the same logic behind pricing a home, you find comparable recent sales. So maybe the simplest solution citywide is to require empty lots and parking lots be given the average value of the structures a certain distance away and let actual building property value stay on the same model.

But with a density add-on based on a math formula, not zoning. If an area has more than a certain number of buildings within a certain distance, all over X floors in height, a formula immediately applies to determine the density value of the area. You make it based on a threshold number because a single notable structure shouldn't hurt everyone in an area. But a popular area to build denser in it would apply. Like Briarcliff Village might be a good example of the minimum applying and being an area where additional density should be encouraged.

When this density formula is triggered on a building you have a formula where the density value is figured for each building independently. You end up with a map where each parcel is assigned a number.

Then each parcel is assigned a second, third, and so on value based on the value of nearby parcels but with a percentage drop. So you get additional values equal to 90% of the building next to you, 80% of the building a block away and so on. Caddycorner parcels would be 95%, 85% and such. Basically you have a number based on how close the structure is.

AND if you don't have a density value you can still get a density tax value of up to 9 blocks away to recognize that this area is up and coming. It's your density adjacent value.

Then you pay the HIGHEST number of all the values assigned to the parcel. A good example is the parking lot at 11th and Wyandotte. It's surrounded by tall buildings so it would likely pay a tax similar to what One KC Place or the Hyatt would pay. Parking lots and garages immediately skyrocket in value in core areas.

A new building like One Light near to other towers might not change the tax equation for that area but the new hotels at 16th/Baltimore would immediately bump the taxable value of the crossroads.

[pash]

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[mgh7676]

This project was the focus at the DNA meeting this evening. Just an update, work began a few days ago and is set to be complete in 18-24 months. Pretty exciting for our riverfront!

[normalthings]

Any pics?

[Eon Blue]

Nothing that we haven't seen already. Most significant news was that there is currently a rock crusher on site, actively crushing rocks.

[shinatoo]

Why can we do something more like this



With and audible "Warning: Approaching Kansas"

[mykn]

Maybe like:

[Eon Blue]

This project has been awfully quiet. No active permits show up on KIVA. Any scuttlebutt out there?

[flyingember]

I noticed there's big piles of rock on the site and heavy equipment ready. So something must be coming soon.

[normalthings]

I noticed there's big piles of rock on the site and heavy equipment ready. So something must be coming soon.

That's been there for a long while.