Back door Lot Next Door

Although I understand the concern, I'm not as worried about the zoning exceptions created through this than I am about the fact that this appears to have been a secret.. or at least quiet.. conduit for moving Road Home property.

After the council meeting, The Lens asked Councilwomen Stacy Head and Kristin Gisleson Palmer if they had ever heard of the Near Miss program. They hadn’t, and they were dismayed to learn that the council had been working with the Redevelopment Authority for months to expand the Lot Next Door program when the authority already had done so on its own.

Changing the rules without the council’s input “makes the legislative act meaningless,” Head said.

Lou Volz, who was on the Planning Commission when the Redevelopment Authority created the Near Miss program, said he never knew commercial property owners could buy Road Home properties. “It never occurred to me that commercial or other non-residential entities were even a possibility,” he said via email.

Even now, the Near Miss program is mentioned nowhere on the Redevelopment Authority website. A city news release outlining the recent expansion of the Lot Next Door Program doesn’t note that commercial property owners have been able to buy these properties for a few years.