Industrial Outdoor Storage/Parking Zoning

dw55284

Would appreciate if anyone could point me to articles, commentary, etc., that examine the current increase in demand for IOS and the ways that local governments are addressing this and balancing against the desire to introduce other uses (such as housing) in the locations most attractive to IOS.

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    John Pattison

    This is John Pattison, and I'm on staff at Strong Towns. I have a fairly extensive knowledge of our archives, and I'm pretty sure we've never written or published anything specifically about industrial outdoor storage.

    But I put your question to my colleagues, and Edward Erfurt responded:

    IOS can be a real mess. These become popular when the commercial markets have a backlog or when there are trade imbalances. For several years, it was cheaper for China to send shipping containers on a one way trip to the US than to have empty containers shipped back. Now, we are unloading two years of goods off of ships no one wants. There were literally no place to store all the containers.

    I think the question is how do you preserve land for all uses, even the ugly ones. This requires a strong understanding of the market and a good plan. I do not think you will find any data that demonstrate a large storage yard creates a return on investment for the miles of infrastructure to support it.

    Here in the Action Lab, we have a number of resources on land use. Here are a few links:

    I'm sorry I couldn't give you anything more specific to Industrial Outdoor Storage

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