The Z-word is back

[Subdude]

As city grows, zoning talk is reborn

Neighborhoods want some way to regulate new development

By MIKE SNYDER

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

The Z-word is back.

Zoning, a simple, two-syllable word that has enormous emotional power in the only major American city without it, is popping up in dinner-party conversations, Internet forums and civic club meetings as central Houston neighborhoods struggle with new development that their leaders believe would harm their quality of life.

Not a single elected official in Houston publicly supports a citywide zoning ordinance, which under the city charter cannot be enacted without a referendum.

But neighborhood leaders and the politicians who represent them are so desperate for solutions that they are at least talking about zoning, if only as a way to develop alternative policies that might achieve the same results.

Link

[musicman]

deja vu. developers will say it is too restictive and use their money to buy advertising space against the idea should it come to a vote.

[jfre81]

Enacting zoning in Houston indeed is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Whatever is standing right now, where it is, will still be standing right now where it is after zoning gets passed, if it does.

The lack of zoning has saved this city from being monopolized by Californians and northeasterners who can sell a modest house for a mansion's price in our reckoning, then buying a (Mc)mansion here. They can still do that now, but if the risk of a KFC opening the other side of their fence worries them too much maybe they'll take the monopoly money somewhere else. The almighty dollar is still king in American urban planning, zoning laws or not.

The option of assigning density levels (not use) is about the only thing this city could do at this point and have any impact, and even then if they zone high-density projects out of, say, Southampton after the highrise on Bissonnet goes up, well, you still have a highrise on Bissonnet.

[TheNiche]

Link

Tisk tisk, when are developers going to learn not to build anything anywhere remotely near uber wealthy political contributors? Doing so only escalates theirs and every other developer's exposure to political risk. They can build anything they want anywhere else (politicians don't really care about poor people because they contribute very little and have lower turnout), but the fools just have to push the envelope and ruin it for everyone. Very frustrating.

[GovernorAggie]

Enacting zoning in Houston indeed is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Whatever is standing right now, where it is, will still be standing right now where it is after zoning gets passed, if it does.

The lack of zoning has saved this city from being monopolized by Californians and northeasterners who can sell a modest house for a mansion's price in our reckoning, then buying a (Mc)mansion here. They can still do that now, but if the risk of a KFC opening the other side of their fence worries them too much maybe they'll take the monopoly money somewhere else. The almighty dollar is still king in American urban planning, zoning laws or not.

The option of assigning density levels (not use) is about the only thing this city could do at this point and have any impact, and even then if they zone high-density projects out of, say, Southampton after the highrise on Bissonnet goes up, well, you still have a highrise on Bissonnet.

And that's all that should matter, IMO. Uses aren't as big a deal to me as are the form and impacts of a development on the surrounding area.

[lockmat]

Thought about putting this in the 1717 Bissonett thread but didn't want to completely let this topic take it over, although it is completely relevant.

Houston is a different kind of town. Brash, booming, it has sprawl and air pollution, but also vibrancy and a can-do spirit. One of the things that really makes Houston different is its absence of a zoning code. That absence strikes many people in the rest of the country as quirky in the extreme, if not downright dangerous. CB Richard Ellis, the big property company, fields a lot of questions about land use in Houston. The following is an article in the second-quarter edition of Investment Research Quarterly, a publication of CB Richard Ellis Investors LLC.

...

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hot...ouston_get.html

[lockmat]

Personally, I would like Houston to become more centralized and dense and more importantly more structurally organized infrastructure wise and interactively. And I'm really curious how some kind of zoning would change Houston, for the better or worse? No doubt it it would have its pros and cons, but it seems with all our growth we need a little more organization. Of course, feel free to disagree and I know many do - and strongly.

I don't know about local government, but I know federal government laws sometimes expire. Would it be possible for us to try zoning for say, like 8-10 years, just to see how we like it? Maybe that's not enough time.

Thoughts?

[lockmat]

Personally, I would like Houston to become more centralized and dense and more importantly more structurally organized infrastructure wise and interactively. And I'm really curious how some kind of zoning would change Houston, for the better or worse? No doubt it it would have its pros and cons, but it seems with all our growth we need a little more organization. Of course, feel free to disagree and I know many do - and strongly.

I don't know about local government, but I know federal government laws sometimes expire. Would it be possible for us to try zoning for say, like 8-10 years, just to see how we like it? Maybe that's not enough time.

Thoughts?

Speak of the devil. More Houstonians support stricter land use: http://www.khou.com/news/local/Poll-Houstonians-lean-toward-more-restrictions-on-development-225450672.html