SEVEN

ENFORCEMENT

EIGHT MARKET TRENDS

NINE

RESIDENTBUSINESS TENSION

The enforcement environment is also uncertain and mostly ineffective. The City’s primary enforcement tool is to issue a violation, with offenders paying a fine. However, the non-conforming users are not forced to leave but simply continue their occupancy.

When zoning regulations are enforced in an ad hoc manner, market trends evolve and shape Broadway – without a longterm plan. As early as the 1980s, the CPC noted the way in which flouting the zoning altered outcomes: “If residential purchasers or renters of loft space did not ignore zoning regulations, there would be no market and therefore little incentive for developers to convert manufacturing buildings… to residential use.”52 By allowing non-conforming uses to flourish, the City and the neighborhood have benefited as old manufacturing buildings that might otherwise be vacant have been restored and repurposed.

Residents and businesses often have different needs and priorities which conflict. For example, there is an inherent conflict in how residents, businesses, and office tenants use the corridor at night. Retail store owners want to receive inventory and have garbage picked up overnight. Developers want to conduct demolition after hours. Residents want peace and quiet. While some tension in a mixed-use area is inevitable, appropriate zoning regulations create reasonable expectations of what activities are permitted and allow conflicting parties to co-exist more peacefully. On the Ground Today

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