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Committee asked to flag suspect parcels after discussion of 'phantom capacity and assessor cutoffs
Summary
Members raised examples where assessor data and tax-lot boundaries produce apparent 'phantom capacity (small strips, combined lots treated differently, paved parking lots counted as developed). Staff asked committee members to review the interactive map and submit tax-lot numbers for manual review by staff.
Committee members spent substantial time examining specific parcel examples that illustrate how assessor records and tax-lot geometry can create misleading BLI classifications. Jeff (speaker 8) pointed to instances where adjacent permitted lots are effectively used as one fenced yard and asked how those cases are captured. "Every time I found an undeveloped lot that just seemed odd... the undeveloped designation was actually an owner maybe that had 2 adjacent lots and torn the fence down between them," Jeff said.
Staff acknowledged those edge cases and described how they handle them: if two lots combined met the threshold they could be flagged as partially vacant, otherwise the assessor'derived classifications normally persist and are subject to manual review where warranted. Philip Farrington and others identified the former KEZI TV site on Coburg Road as an example: paved lots and demolished buildings can still be classified as developed because pavement counts as an improvement. Staff asked members to email parcel IDs and notes about suspect sites so staff can re-examine classification and, where appropriate, reclassify or document the rationale.
Thea said the table on the map that summarized very small undeveloped parcels shows only 25 buildable acres citywide that fall below thresholds for capacity calculation, stressing it is a small portion of total buildable land but important to avoid over-counting "phantom capacity."
