He said “build very tall [affordable] housing in place of this empty business” and the city said “no we can’t because we said a really little bit of this property can’t be a tall building a long time ago and it would be too much paperwork to change that, so here’s an empty McDonald’s. Enjoy!”

The zoning of the property limits its development potential and is underzoned compared to the other corners that have zoning more appropriate for the area/location. Darrel Clarke is the local city council member for this area and the head of city council which has some say over zoning districts.

I think we can all agree that this McDonald’s and gas station/convenience store wasn’t the best use of this land, especially given the recent development in the area. I am curious to see how development will work here with at least two underground gas storage tanks. Lot of land remediation.

Cmx means commercial mixed use. It’s poor form to use an acronym without first defining it

he didn't even say the thing!