TPCHD takeover: Why favor developer interests?

Re: “Council’s health department coup is about permits, not COVID-19,” (TNT, 12/10).

Thanks to columnist Matt Driscoll for making visible what may be the answer to the question: Why disrupt public health services in the midst of a pandemic?

It seems that Pierce County’s construction permitting process causes inconvenience to developers. Presumably, it also increases development costs, but I assume those costs are more than covered when new projects are purchased by home or business owners.

So, we need to weigh the costs of developer inconvenience against the damage to public health services. We need access to data for accurate cost-benefit analysis, and none are known to have been calculated here.

However, I suspect the disruptions incurred to the general community by disruption of public health services are much greater than the costs of developer inconvenience.

Whenever policy decisions are made responsibly, part of the decision process involves identifying not only the direct costs and benefits of the policy, but also anticipating potentially harmful side effects.

In this case, there could be especially negative impacts on the many middle- and lower income families who rely on public health services.

This story was originally published December 12, 2020 at 10:37 AM with the headline "TPCHD takeover: Why favor developer interests?."