Ethics and Economic Development	.
June W. Catalano, AICP	Author Info

Abstract

Introduction

Example 1

Horrified, you tell her that you are already talking about selling the property to an existing business in town. She replies that the job of the redevelopment agency is to get the best user. She reminds you that the City Council has long wanted a bookstore in town. She further reminds you that the Chamber of Commerce also covets this gem.

The City Manager is an avid reader (Tom Clancy) and really wants this to happen. Your widget company owner says he can't find another location in time. The lease on his current location is being canceled and he must move. He can't stop making widgets for even a day without losing his customers.

He says if you help this happen small businesses will never trust the city again....

Example 2

You are in the process of rezoning the site from industrial to commercial in hopes of attracting enough capital to clean it up. A major theater group approaches you in strictest confidence. They are interested in the site but they cannot make the deal work if the owner insists on getting a retail price per square foot. They ask that you delay rezoning to give their agent a chance to buy the property.

You discuss this with the economic development director and the City Manager, and express ethical concerns about delaying the zone change. They both see this as a major opportunity for the City. They regale you with tales of how horrible, miserly and uncooperative the landowner is. They then bring you to tears by telling you how surrounding landowners have been cheated of their birthright because the contamination of this property has depressed property values all around it.

Couldn't you just back-burner it for a bit....

Example 3

In the meantime, there are a number of local businesses that are making improvements in expectation of the hordes of yuppies that will gather along Main Street. The local antique store, for example, is planning to expand and is already spending money on architectural plans.

The developer is pleading with you to avoid making the deli's decision public because he hopes to persuade the company to change its mind; also, if the coffee shop knows the deli is wavering, it may back out and the whole development will vanish. The antique store owner stops by your office frequently as she works on her addition, asking about the status of the new development. As a planner, you are experienced in handling confidential information, but the development has been announced, and in addition, the City is an active partner in the deal--it helped finance the purchase of the property.

The deli has made it clear that they won't be swayed by any pleas by the developer, but you aren't sure.

What is your obligation to the antique store owner and other small businesses in the downtown...

Example 4

Suddenly, a conference center near your city has been approved by the County. To your amazement, a top-of-the-line hotel is interested in your downtown. The only location that is large enough to accommodate it is the very one where you have been negotiating to put the Smith Hotel. The economic development director comes to you and says in a hard and calculating voice: "We're telling Smith they're out--ditch that development agreement--we're going to make a trillion dollars and put the downtown on the map!"

The developer, who is local, says she has been working in good faith and has spent significant money already on this deal and you will bankrupt her and her family and all of her relatives.

The City Manager is torn and asks you what should be done.....

Example 5

Your city desperately needs the sales tax. Even your existing businesses are not objecting because they are concerned that if the big box locates in an adjacent city, it will hurt them even more. You can use the extra sales tax to make improvements that will have great long term benefits.

It is late at night, you are pondering what to do....

The Issues

These benefits have costs, however. Planners become much more involved in the private sector. They are privy to confidential information in a way that they have not been before. They are asked to take actions to benefit private companies because of benefits to the community. They may also be asked to delay actions. They may even be asked to edge toward abandoning traditional good planning practices in order to allow a use that the community really wants.

Planners have a tradition of analyzing, reviewing and meticulously choosing an action or policy. This does not work well in the ready-fire-aim atmosphere of economic development. It is not only time that constrains the typical planning approach: often there is nothing to analyze--no set policy, no general plan or environmental documents. The planner is thrust into the vague world of gut instinct.

I do not think there is any easy right answer to the five examples discussed above. In each, the planner is faced with immediate market influences that usually are not a planning concern. Planners spend considerable time picking the right mix of land uses for the general plan, thus influencing the long term market. This is comfortable because vast tracts of business commercial red on a map result from analysis of endless data. Even downzoning properties may not be too painful because the planning profession has been doing it for decades and has come to terms with the idea that it is for the greater benefit of the community.

The problem with economic development, however, is that the planner may be forced to withhold information, or take an action that may be seen by some people as favoring one interest over another without much planning rationale for doing so. This may be the source of greatest pain to the profession. We have not yet found easy ways to reconcile the opportunities economic development provides with the demands it makes on traditional ways of viewing the planning profession.

An additional problem comes from the fact that planning and economic development are often in separate departments of the City. By the time planning is aware of what is happening, there may be no time to create alternative plans. In this atmosphere, planners have to develop very good reflexes.

Our profession has always done well when fact-based analysis and public discussion is needed. We can in fact take actions that benefit the community in the long run and adversely impact individuals in the short run. As with downzoning, once we are comfortable with an idea, we can implement it. Our increasing interaction with economic development, however, requires quick actions that cannot by their nature have the type of analysis that is the bedrock of the planning profession. We need to find new ways to deal with these new demands that are consistent with planning ethics.

I believe it is incumbent on the profession to debate the types of situations that arise between planning and economic development and develop strategies to cope with them. Economic development will only get more important for cities. The sooner we begin the debate, the better off we will be.