Houston "The Great Unzoned City." (Dallas, Fort Worth: 2015, neighborhoods)

[Mr. Clutch]

Love it. Zoning is an overrated and usually overly heavy-handed policy that deprives landowners of the right to use their land to it's best and highest use.

I'm sure this will still be being debated 50 and 100 years from now lol.

[H'ton]

No...I've lived in Houston my whole life and have visited many premiere world cities, in the US and outside.

I'm not going to go as far as say we need zoning, but a city plan to steer development with a design review committee would help with some of the problems we are going to have and improve the aesthetics of the city.

Non zoning is just a another way of saying "cash grab " for developers with limited infrastructure cohesion for its residents.

I've lived inside the loop for 25 years and have been to comparable sized cities all over the world. I notice a big difference...in a negative way

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by Mr. Clutch

Love it. Zoning is an overrated and usually overly heavy-handed policy that deprives landowners of the right to use their land to it's best and highest use.

I'm sure this will still be being debated 50 and 100 years from now lol.

What we have now is people building mini apartments in their backyard with no street parking. Double the density with no additional parking. Our mass transit system in San Diego is almost non-existent.

[usc619]

Originally Posted by H'ton

No...I've lived in Houston my whole life and have visited many premiere world cities, in the US and outside.

I'm not going to go as far as say we need zoning, but a city plan to steer development with a design review committee would help with some of the problems we are going to have and improve the aesthetics of the city.

Non zoning is just a another way of saying "cash grab " for developers with limited infrastructure cohesion for its residents.

I've lived inside the loop for 25 years and have been to comparable sized cities all over the world. I notice a big difference...in a negative way

Bingo

[LocalPlanner]

A great many of the things people complain about with the lack of traditional zoning can be addressed without actual land use zoning, where specific land uses and densities are dictated by government regulation of specific pieces of land. Instead, well-done design standards and performance requirements can help avoid conflicting uses without so diminishing property rights and interference in the market. People complain about "appearance" and tie it to lack of zoning, but that's mostly an issue of design standards and lack of property upkeep. For example, Houston created a landscape ordinance without zoning a few decades ago, and while it could use some tweaking, no one can deny that it improved the city (even if it did increase development costs a bit).

Don't forget that traditional zoning in major cities has served as a prime vehicle for municipal corruption. And in both large and small cities, it's been applied as a tool of racial and class segregation.

To me, the biggest problem you can easily see from lack of zoning in Houston was the incursion of heavy manufacturing uses, some with negative environmental impacts, into urban neighborhoods during the 1950s and 1960s. That could have been prevented with well-designed performance standards that would have prevented those uses from coming into existing residential areas, without designating specific parcels for either type of use.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

A great many of the things people complain about with the lack of traditional zoning can be addressed without actual land use zoning, where specific land uses and densities are dictated by government regulation of specific pieces of land. Instead, well-done design standards and performance requirements can help avoid conflicting uses without so diminishing property rights and interference in the market. People complain about "appearance" and tie it to lack of zoning, but that's mostly an issue of design standards and lack of property upkeep. For example, Houston created a landscape ordinance without zoning a few decades ago, and while it could use some tweaking, no one can deny that it improved the city (even if it did increase development costs a bit).

Don't forget that traditional zoning in major cities has served as a prime vehicle for municipal corruption. And in both large and small cities, it's been applied as a tool of racial and class segregation.

To me, the biggest problem you can easily see from lack of zoning in Houston was the incursion of heavy manufacturing uses, some with negative environmental impacts, into urban neighborhoods during the 1950s and 1960s. That could have been prevented with well-designed performance standards that would have prevented those uses from coming into existing residential areas, without designating specific parcels for either type of use.

Yes, a great example is the Watson Grinding or what some call the Spring Branch explosion in January 2020. 2000 Homes were damaged or destroyed and 3 people lost their lives because of an explosion at a company most never knew existed inside the Beltway.

Because of this incident Houston has changed its inspection regime and has reregulated the storing of gases such as propylene which were only inspected if the storage tank was inside a building, but in this case the line inside a building sprung a leak and the building filled with propylene gas and blew up when a spark ignited it. It is believed the spark was created when a worker turned on a light switch when he came in early to use the weightroom the company provided.

Originally Posted by themosthated

My questions: why is growth in and of itself the goal? Isn't smart growth more desirable? What about all of the other major cities that grew with zoning, including Houston's peers in the Sunbelt?

Not seeing the upside or how it has spared the city from a problem that every other city in America has.

The main purpose of any city is to provide opportunity not to look pretty. Of course, if you can do both then great. My take on zoning in Houston is that Houston does have Defacto zoning which it enforces through its building codes. Houston has pretty much developed the same way its Southern peers have developed with or without zoning.

LocalPlanner does point out one very big gap Houston had in its building and inspection codes which I elaborated on in my reply to his post above.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by H'ton

No...I've lived in Houston my whole life and have visited many premiere world cities, in the US and outside.

I'm not going to go as far as say we need zoning, but a city plan to steer development with a design review committee would help with some of the problems we are going to have and improve the aesthetics of the city.

Non zoning is just a another way of saying "cash grab " for developers with limited infrastructure cohesion for its residents.

I've lived inside the loop for 25 years and have been to comparable sized cities all over the world. I notice a big difference...in a negative way

I agree with basically everything here. As someone who has also traveled to many premier world cities, there is one important thing that you left out that’s relevant to Jack’s post. Which is that many of these global cities didn’t have the modern zoning ordinances that many post WWII cities have. The lack of early zoning allowed those cities to commercialize in ways that many more modern sunbelt American cities haven’t.

Had Houston had a strict zoning ordinance, we may not have the TMC-Rice-Hermann Park, Museum District corridor. Which in my opinion is the closest thing to an inner city cosmopolitan environment that Texas has to offer. And on that, I do agree with Jack’s post that the lesser zoning allowed Houston to blossom in that department.

Where I, however, disagree with Jack’s post is that we’ve already grown. We’ve more or less already grown into what we will grow into. We need modern laws that address modern problems. And this does hold us back.

For reference of places I’ve seen, they include London, Paris, Singapore and Rome.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by themosthated

My questions: why is growth in and of itself the goal? Isn't smart growth more desirable? What about all of the other major cities that grew with zoning, including Houston's peers in the Sunbelt?

Not seeing the upside or how it has spared the city from a problem that every other city in America has.

A very large share of U.S. cities, especially the urban core cities, grew largely before zoning was implemented. Even Los Angeles was quite large before it had zoning.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by themosthated

But here we are discussing how Houston's lack of zoning has made it an exceptional case in a good way. So I guess I'll rephrase my questions by instead asking if you think that the lack of zoning will continue to be successful and eventually carry the city further than its peers (?). With zoning, Dallas-Fort Worth eclipsed the Houston area generations ago and I think they still have the brighter future. They wouldn't likely agree that the Houston model "should be copied".

"Eclipsed the Houston area generations ago"...are you being serious?

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

I agree with basically everything here. As someone who has also traveled to many premier world cities, there is one important thing that you left out that’s relevant to Jack’s post. Which is that many of these global cities didn’t have the modern zoning ordinances that many post WWII cities have. The lack of early zoning allowed those cities to commercialize in ways that many more modern sunbelt American cities haven’t.

Had Houston had a strict zoning ordinance, we may not have the TMC-Rice-Hermann Park, Museum District corridor. Which in my opinion is the closest thing to an inner city cosmopolitan environment that Texas has to offer. And on that, I do agree with Jack’s post that the lesser zoning allowed Houston to blossom in that department.

Where I, however, disagree with Jack’s post is that we’ve already grown. We’ve more or less already grown into what we will grow into. We need modern laws that address modern problems. And this does hold us back.

For reference of places I’ve seen, they include London, Paris, Singapore and Rome.

I don't know at this point how much incorporated Houston's population will grow. However, it's the redevelopment of older uses, including older single family, into denser residential like townhomes and apartments that provides the best odds of this happening. The extent to which this has happened since the late 1990s is astounding and has been made possible by the lack of zoning. You just don't find that extent of redevelopment in zoned cities.