Why Don't Local Governments Help Small Businesses More?

A call for explanations

This little footnote from a recent piece, on further thinking, is worth its own piece:

I tweeted a story from Flemington about a business owner who bought an old building to relocate a long-running business in town. The owner ran into a bunch of code compliance issues with the old building, and costs went way up and the business’s reopening date was delayed. I got a comment from a town council member on my tweet that he agreed we need to help small businesses more, and asked if I had any suggestions. Well, I said, I’m not an expert on the details of this stuff, but aren’t there variances you can get for code issues when there’s no economic way to bring the building to code? Isn’t that better than letting historic buildings waste away and driving local business owners away? Yes, there are variances, he said, but he wasn’t aware of the business owner having applied for one. Well, there you go: even a very sympathetic local government member is thinking in paperwork/process terms and not “how can the town actively facilitate the fortunes of its historic structures and its local business owners?” You know who can power through these problems? Big developers.

Here is another example that I’ve been following, because I really miss eating there. Keren, an Eritrean (pretty much the same menu as an Ethiopian) restaurant in Washington, D.C. had a fire in in February 2024 and has been closed ever since for major renovation. The owners had originally intended to be open over a year ago, but have posted a couple of updates and noted that permitting/red tape has held them back tremendously.

In September 2024 they wrote on Facebook, “There is so much red tape and many details to address. We hope to be open soon.” And they repeated it just recently to the D.C. blogger Prince of Petworth: “He [owner] did express a bit of frustration over the permitting process and folks trying to break into the space…”

So my question here, to anyone who is actually a local government/board official or small developer or business owner who’s had to do renovation/construction: why does it seem like small business owners are just left in the lurch like this? It’s a known thing that buildings need renovations or repairs, and someone has to actually do them. Why are there no programs/packages to sort of help along owners through this stuff?

“Here are the permits you need, here’s how you fill them out” or, you know, “We know who you are you’ve never had any violations so these permits have been pulled for you”? Or “we know someone is going to encounter a massive code issue in this three-story building without sprinklers that’s been sitting empty for 10 years, so we’re just going to go ahead and issue a preemptive variance for the sprinkler system so the building can actually be used again”? Etc.

Is this viewed as corruption, or at least as too cozy with certain business interests? (But when did that ever stop local governments?) Is it simply too localized and discretionary for professional, by-the-book bureaucrat types? (But the whole zoning/permitting system is practically built on discretion.) In other words, is this one of those “works in practice but not in theory” things, where the result would obviously be good but there’s no way to codify the process fairly or impartially?

Or is it that in many cases businesses owners complaining about “red tape” are really referring to a lot of different things, some of which may really be their own fault or down to very poor judgment on their parts? And that helping them through official processes would open up cans up worms and not really resolve the core problems they often run into?

I would love any insider’s view on this question, and any examples of local governments easing along these processes for small business owners!

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Related Reading:

Hyperlocal Patriotism

Respites and Little Luxuries

Now, Folks, It’s Time For “Who Do You Trust!”

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