Why are developers crabgrass? Ubiquity, perniciousness, invasiveness and uncontrolability.

Consider the gun club crowd. Every taxpayer in this state got taken down by that development promotion. Recall whose family was prominently in the chain of title to that land. Then development interests went afoot, responsible for the push to route sewer/water, via a council vote, to that project.

Well there's more. DEED, the Department of Employment and Economic Development, gave for that development promotion $25,000 of our money, state tax payer money, for them to profit more via avoiding paying $25,000 of developer money as a part of the site cleanup freight -- it was development interests avoiding privately paying from deveoper funds for studies prior to remediating past title holder polluting of the land via hobby shooting. Those in the chain of title - They'd the guns, the intent and the idle time to shoot. Lead all over where it fell, and, pure and simple taking money raised from us all, statewide, to help the few avoid a cost of doing business.

Here:

Cleanup Grants Spur More than $68 Million in New Development
Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Meredith Udoibok
651/297-4132 Meredith.Udoibok@state.mn.us

Several Minnesota communities will transform land once considered unfit for development into flourishing new places to live and work thanks in part to more than $4 million in contaminated site cleanup grants from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Seven projects in the Twin Cities metro area and one in Greater Minnesota qualified for the grants during this funding cycle. The sites are located in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Columbia Heights, New Brighton, Ramsey and Moorhead. Five of the grants are for site cleanup projects. Three others are “investigation” grants, which will be used to confirm and assess the level of pollution at the chosen sites.

[...]

City of Ramsey - St. Anthony Gun Club

$25,000 Investigation Grant
Investigate and assess a 120-acre site formerly used as a shooting range. Private developer Bay Hill plans to construct 159 single-family homes on the site, which is located at 16128 Variolite Street NW. The development is expected to increase the tax base by $646,898.
Local contact: James E. Norman, 763-427-1410

Well, read that last sentence. Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out; James E. Norman.

Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because that's where the money is. If Willie Sutton were as bright and brassy as a developer these days he'd have been getting tax grant money from taxpayer pockets, and he'd probably have gotten a plaque and award from folks at city hall, instead of jail time. Crabgrass indeed.