Curbside Disservice: Designing Land Use Policies Sustaining Neighborhoods During Transit Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

This article begins with this simple proposition: An infill transit construction project’s work destroys businesses in its right-of-way, pavement-chewing path. Transit construction’s collateral damage dislocates neighborhoods and unravels the social fabric of a community as locally established business operations fail. This article explains how cities with transit projects currently attempt solutions to the problem like rendering “marketing and social networking” advice and founding “business alliances” – and why cities fall short of their goal to stave off merchant failures. It next explains why merchant claims against cities asserting nuisance or regulatory takings are doomed to failure – and how cities waste scarce resources defending against takings claims, whatever their ultimate outcome. The article then describes how innovations in land use policy-making, using overlay and floating district adoption, zoning adjustment and joint development agreements, can sustain commerce in transit project construction zones for the duration of a transit infrastructure project.