Development

Developers Development Janet Brekke Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

The water problem with Wholestone’s packing plant

l3wis September 11, 2022 9Comments

Recently Joe Kirby wrote a post about why another slaughterhouse is NOT a good idea for Sioux Falls;

Slaughterhouses are a horrible fit for our community. Affordable housing and workforce availability are already huge concerns. The idea of adding lots of difficult, low-paying, low-skill jobs, the type that have traditionally been a drag on our progress and success, makes no sense to me. And expanding the presence inside our city of an industry which has long caused pollution problems in our river and air makes no sense. I simply don’t understand why we would want more of this in Sioux Falls.

I agree, I don’t want another slaughterhouse built, but I would much more prefer there was an effort to not only STOP Wholestone but to close down Smithfields.

The issue with this entire fiasco has nothing to do with Wholestone vs. the Citizens vs. the City, it has to do with South Dakota voters, including right here in Sioux Falls who vote against their own interests. When the City Council passed Shape Places, several citizens said this was a bad thing and wanted to see some changes to the zoning ordinances, so they referred it to a vote. The development community along with some councilors said nothing to see here, move along, and the voters ultimately passed the original plan.

The argument then is still the argument today, Shape Places took power away from the council to make conditional use decisions, and when you take power from our citizen representatives, you take power from us.

I think if the council still had that power instead giving total control over to the developers Wholestone would have been denied by the Council or scaled way back and it has little to do with water quality or air quality, it has to do with water supply.

Where do you think WF will get their water? The reason WF is building within the city limits has nothing to do with the labor market, it has to do with using city resources, they will be using a lot.

Besides letting the developers take over almost all branches of city government we have also let them plan this city instead of the government and citizens;

Granted, the city does a lot of planning. It has a parks plan, a capital spending plan, a downtown plan and much more. But I am not aware of any sort of comprehensive plan for our city with direct participation of the mayor and council. In support of that, some council members and candidates have told me they wished they could be involved in that sort of big-picture, strategic planning. If there was such a plan, I doubt it would have included the phrase, “add more slaughterhouses”.

This is something Janet Brekke stressed in her entire 4 years on the council. Her colleagues on the dais ignored her and did nothing. I think if she would have gotten re-elected and we would have changed a couple of other seats, Brekke would have been successful moving it forward.

Once again, in Sioux Falls and the rest of the state we continue to vote against our own best interests, and until that changes, you will see NO change in the status quo; DEVELOPERS RUN OUR CITY.

Affordable Housing Crime Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Janet Brekke Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Mayor TenHaken pens rare Op Ed

l3wis September 4, 2022 4Comments

Imagine my surprise when I found this Op Ed by the Mayor in the Argus today. I can’t remember the last time he wrote an Op Ed in the Argus (or should we say one of his minions). I suspect there has been some push back by VIPs in the community about crime prevention;

Our per-capita violent crime rates have been largely flat for the past decade, and that is true again for 2022.

While this is true when you compare to population growth, the crimes have become more violent and drug related. I’m not putting this entirely on PTH, even though he has had 4 years to do something about it. The past two police chiefs essentially hid in their offices doing little to address the drug related crimes. Chief Thum has decided to tackle it with 1,000 times more transparency than the last couple of guys but he does need the mayor, his boss, to step up.

The Sioux 52 Mentoring Initiative was set up to intentionally begin addressing challenges we were seeing with juvenile crime.

I commend this program. Mentoring is essential to help keep youth out of trouble. After winning re-election PTH handed the program over to the HelpLine Center. I’m fine with that except when an elected official starts an initiative they need to stick with even after leaving office. It’s one thing to applaud mentoring programs but on the other hand turn them over to a private entity.

Crime largely has to do with economic status. I don’t believe middle class and lower middle class individuals in Sioux Falls ever fully recovered from the 2008 recession in which wages were frozen for several years. While businesses complain they can’t find workers and can’t afford to pay more, the problem is they never kept up to begin with, wages were stagnant for over a decade while the cost of housing has skyrocketed. The math just doesn’t add up.

It’s the tale of two cities. Over the summer I have decided to ride my bike through neighborhoods (logging almost 3,000 miles since last November) and came to the conclusion that 18th street (west to east) is the dividing line. The further South you go the better the residential neighborhoods, the further North, not so much. While there are pockets like extreme NE and NW for the most part the city is divided in economic status, infrastructure upgrades and housing.

When Janet Brekke was on the council she pushed hard for a pilot program to fix up some of these neighborhoods which would have required a heavy lift from the city when it comes to infrastructure. The solution the city offered was slab on grade tract homes between Brandon and Washington HS. Hardly what Brekke was envisioning. If we don’t address building density in our core for affordable housing in this community ASAP I’m afraid crime is only going to get worse.

Fighting crime means fighting for a more sustainable economy in Sioux Falls, FOR EVERYONE! As that line on 18th street gets wider crime is only going to rise.

Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Sioux Falls TIFs

Downtown Sioux Falls organization wants to increase the bid tax

l3wis September 2, 2022 6Comments

Thank goodness we have a new media source in Sioux Falls covering City Hall, otherwise I would not have had any idea DTSF was planning this;

Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. (DTSF) this month will ask the Sioux Falls City Council to get behind a proposal to get rid of a decades-old cap on the amount of revenue it can collect on parcels within the boundaries of what’s known as the Main Street Business Improvement District (BID).

However, not everyone is on board.
Duff Robinson, owner of a pair of properties in the northern end of downtown, said he’s not opposed to lifting the cap. But he said DTSF could capture additional revenues with a more modest change to the special assessment.
Rather than leaving the base rate of the special assessment at $1.50 per $1,000 of valuation for downtown buildings and adding a 50-cent tax on valuation beyond the $1 million value, Robinson said DTSF could capture additional dollars by lowering the base rate and relying on the overall valuation increases assessed on downtown properties by the county equalization office and a reduced base rate for the BID.
“With an 18 percent increase in valuations, they’re going to get an increase anyway even if they don’t approve this,” Robinson said, referring to average assessment increases placed on downtown properties in 2021. “I’ve come to terms with removing the cap, but I just think they should flatten it out.”

Here’s a better idea, STOP HANDING OUT $50 MILLION DOLLAR TIFS FOR PARKING RAMPS DOWNTOWN.

Isn’t it ironic that DTSF is the first to hit the podium at Carnegie talking about all the TIFilicious benefits of Tax Increment Financing then turns around and asks for a tax increase to fund its organization. Make the organization DTSF and its employees a division of the city and fund it thru the general fund and parking fund.

When disgruntled, angry developers and bondsters look me straight in the face and tell me I am lying when I point out TIFs only raise taxes on the rest of us I gladly point to this proposed increase which is a prime example of how we give massive tax cuts to very top developments downtown then turn around and increase taxes on everyone else.

Duff is correct, the increase in valuations on properties over $1 million could cover the spread, if only they were paying 100% of property taxes on day one instead of 20 years down the road.

Just further proof that TIFs don’t spur true economic development just higher taxes for the rest of us.

Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Sioux Falls

Downtown Sioux Falls Crane Collapse accident(?)

l3wis September 1, 2022 5Comments

As reported after the incident, the developer claimed that it wasn’t an accident. This is the definition of the word;

an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.

Seems the canary is singing a different tune today;

Following a 200-foot crane collapse at The Steel District in downtown Sioux Falls, the project is back on track, according to Lloyd Companies.

“The front counterweight separated from the crane and we had the crane tipped over, fortunately, that’s all that really came of it. (There was) very little damage to any precast,” Lloyd Company’s Chief Operating Officer Jake Quasney said. “As you can see now, the building is moving right along.”

As I mentioned before OSHA doesn’t show up to a work site to investigate NOTHING or to be CAUTIONARY. On top of that one of OSHA’s main duties is inspecting cranes before they can be used on a work site;

Companies, supervisors, and workers may not be fully aware of the hazards of operating cranes. As a result, they may not have implemented proper policies and procedures to minimize risks. One mechanism to safely evaluate and prepare for risks is through the use of a Job Safety Analysis (“JSA”) or Risk Assessment, which is standard in the industry. When this does not occur, it can result in catastrophic personal injury or death. In a JSA, each step of the job is examined to identify potential hazards and to recommend the safest way to perform the work in order to minimize those risks. According to OSHA:
A job hazard analysis is a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur. It focuses on the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools, and the work environment. Ideally, after you identify uncontrolled hazards, you will take steps to eliminate or reduce them to an acceptable risk level.

Folks, this appears to be an accident caused by mechanical failure. I await the results of the OSHA report.

Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Sioux Falls

UPDATE II: Will OSHA investigate the Crane Collapse in Sioux Falls?

l3wis August 16, 2022 12Comments

UPDATE II: Looks like it is lot easier to tip a crane than to turn it back over.

The developer really needs a communications person reviewing these statements before releasing them;

“We know what happened with the equipment, and it was not anything to do with our building,” said Jake Quasney, chief operating officer of developer and general contractor Lloyd Cos. “We had a failure when it came to that piece of equipment.”

And why would it have anything to do with the structure itself? Am I missing something here?

“OSHA came in even though it wasn’t a workplace accident but out of an abundance of caution,” Quasney said.

So was it a morning donut break gone awry? Using caution is what you are supposed to do BEFORE using the crane, not after the fact. OSHA is investigating because it was AN ACCIDENT. Good thing the crane wasn’t lifting BS, could have been a lot worse,

UPDATE: A reliable source told me this afternoon that OSHA is investigating the crane collapse.

I first want to say I am grateful no one was injured or killed today at the Sioux Steel project crane collapse.

But if you do a little digging, you will see this happens across the United States.

No one was injured in the incident and Lloyd Cos. said it is continuing to investigate the incident alongside local authorities.

I rode my bike by tonight and the crane was in the same position it was this morning. This of course could mean that OSHA will be on site to investigate. I hope so. This is NOT the duty of the local FD or PD, this is a work safety issue that needs to be thoroughly investigated by the FEDS.

As a person who worked construction as a teen and have had many interactions with OSHA we cannot depend on city officials to make a judgement of what happened. There could be a thousand different reasons, but most likely the crane was NOT set up properly or put on ground that was NOT stable. There also could have been mechanical failures. At this point speculation is useless until it is fully investigated.

The water problem with Wholestone’s packing plant

Mayor TenHaken pens rare Op Ed

Downtown Sioux Falls organization wants to increase the bid tax

Downtown Sioux Falls Crane Collapse accident(?)

UPDATE II: Will OSHA investigate the Crane Collapse in Sioux Falls?

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Will the Sioux Falls City Council amend the Rex Rolfing Rule?

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This is F’ing Priceless!