When businesses are killed by developers plans gone awry

Near where I live in Mountain View is this empty lot surrounded by a chain link fence. It formerly housed a small strip shopping center that had a single business selling specialty ethnic food. Here in Silicon Valley we have lots of ethnicities to serve and by all reports this store was very popular for its community. But the developer wanted to put the land to other uses and razed the building of course killing the business which used to occupy this space.

That was a couple years ago and the lot is still empty and still surrounded by a fence.

Why?

This happens all the time. A developer who owns the land often has visions of the correct use of that land which is incompatible with the current use.

In the wake of this the neighborhood lost a local business and has land tied up for nonproductive use.

Because of land ownership policies we cannot even do something useful with this land like create a community garden.

This serves nobody. Well except maybe the mice who run around in this empty field.