>Curious why the city is so reluctant to support new businesses.
I'm guessing the town wants him to do very basic stuff to get the property up to code, and he doesn't want to. Anther person pointed out in a comment that comment chain OPs twitter had posts about about holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration. To me it sounds like OP knew absolutely nothing about commercial real-estate, absolutely nothing about local laws, and plopped down a bunch of money on a property without doing some homework.
It took me about 4 minutes to find out that he was robbed for the ~15th time, called the police, and held the criminal at gunpoint for less than ten minutes until the police arrived. Quite a bit different than "holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration," and with how quickly I found out what actually happened I can only assume you're intentionally misrepresenting the facts.
>It took me about 4 minutes to find out that he was robbed for the ~15th time,
You do realize between his comments here, and a cursory look at his Twitter, he's told about 57 tall tales too many, right? If it was such a bad experience, why did he go on to buy an alleged SEVENTY-FIVE more properties there for starters?
Because the bulk, if not all, of this is probably entirely made up.
This is a process problem. The correct order to do things is: pull permit to fix plumbing, that permit will allow you to connect to the city water for testing purposes once you've proven the system will hold pressure (initial inspection), then when you're connected to the water an additional inspection will be done to verify working plumbing, if thats the only outstanding issue you can apply for a certificate of occupancy, otherwise you move onto other work.
Dealing with the government on things like this can be EXTREMELY frustrating especially if you're not used to running in those circles. Its a lot of things to learn and the people involved assume you know everything and when you get difficult they have a million ways to make your life more annoying.
The city will not issue the permits to do the work. FULL STOP.
I literally already have a city water connection and it's costing me a hundred bucks a month just to sit there unused because I can't get the permits to fix the plumbing... So what would you do in that situation?
According to the city website, there is a vacancy in the planning commission. Apply for it, you'll probably have a lot more success getting the permits you need if they see an official making the requests.
I'm guessing the town wants him to do very basic stuff to get the property up to code, and he doesn't want to. Anther person pointed out in a comment that comment chain OPs twitter had posts about about holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration. To me it sounds like OP knew absolutely nothing about commercial real-estate, absolutely nothing about local laws, and plopped down a bunch of money on a property without doing some homework.