Last September I discovered a strange bid war of federal property called “Ziggurat.” At the time, bids had risen to $154 million. A few weeks later, the property was sold for $177 million, leaving it unable to achieve a single bid at a previous auction where buyers were barred from destroying the property.
So, does it all end well? Do not delete it. At the time, I was worried that new developers were faced with lots of deficits and would take years to get approval for any kind of project. But I wasn’t expecting what came next either:
The US government agency cancelled the iconic Ziglet Federal Officer’s salt from South Orange County to the original auction recipient and awarded it to the Hoag Memorial Hospital Persbyterian, who filed the second highest offer on Wednesday, April 2nd.
Long Beach’s Hilco Development Services, which won a $177 million bid last fall, issued a statement Wednesday that the General Services Bureau was fired to withdraw its purchase after Hoaght called for concern to halt its sale. . . .
Hoag had sued in the lawsuit that Hilco’s partners violated the terms of the auction by attempting to conspire with the price of the SAL.
Hilco claimed that no conspiracy occurred in Court Philings and that nothing inappropriate happened during the auction.
Hilco’s attorney Todd Theodora said in a statement that the company would challenge the GSA’s decision, and that the company “is confident that in the end the GSA will be retained by its original resolve.”
Yes, six months later, the auction remains unresolved.
Our legal system is one of the biggest obstacles to new developments. Even after this case is finally resolved, developers will still need to jump over all kinds of hoops and get approval for all kinds of new developments. Once that approval is finally granted, the local community group will immediately become sue to block development.
There is a reasonable debate as to whether an elected representative or court should decide what is being constructed. (I don’t want either – let the property owner make the decision.) But the WorsStible system is when a single tier of government cannot effectively approve a project, and multiple tier of government can block it.
There is one legislative proposal to at least slightly reduce barriers to construction.
A new bill by Oakland Democrat Congressman Buffy Wicks would exempt most urban housing developments from the 55-year-old California Environmental Quality Act.
Even in today’s dominant pro-building political environment, if it grows, it does not mean that further MAS environmental justice advocates, construction labor unions, and development anti-development homeowners will either take away concessions from developers or delay them indefinitely.
This doesn’t completely resolve the problematic barriers to construction, but it does at least slightly alleviate California’s so-called “Nimby” problem.
Poetry There was a time when something like California got caught up in effective housing policies. Rather than looking at what happened:
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