My wife is a pastor of a Church in that area and attends meetings of a couple of neighborhood councils. According to her, those who are pushing projects like this are new residents who had bought property at fire-sale prices and are now looking to make a profit from re-sale.
The area is presently made up of single-family houses and small businesses. New property owners (as described above) are hard at work building 4 and 5-floor apartment buildings that rent for over $1000/mo (that’s considered “affordable!!) and have NO on-site vehicle parking. If tenants don’t ride a bike to work they have to rely on public transportation and can forget about getting out of town on weekends.
Of course, due to local government financial problems, the long-time residents are getting taxed out of their homes and into dilapidated apartments on the East side of town. Their long-standing problems haven’t been solved or even addressed, only moved. I live on the East side and our crime rate has gone up. I’ve had to install several security features on my house to keep zombies out but I still hear gunshots once or twice a week. It’s a matter of time before they get even closer.
Kindly note that all of this is due to some non-resident landowner wanting to turn a quick profit. And no, the local residents were never polled as to whether or not they wanted a Trader Joe’s. In fact, any who had the opportunity to give an opinion were overwhelmingly against it.
What do you expect from a city that taxes rain?