Six things you might not know about planning

I found this in a blog called Intermodality. Though this is about a concern in Houston,, TX, it is very useful for us in viewing Planning and Zoning in Lee County and how these two issues effect us.

Six things you might not know about planning

2008 started with a new development in an old Houston debate. Former mayor Bob Lanier and several real estate developers have organized a PAC to fight increased building regulations, speaking to city council and bringing in anti-planning speakers. It might seem as if old battle lines have been re-drawn, and we’re in for another zoning fight. But things are not nearly that simple. Here are some ways in which the usual assumptions are wrong:

There are more than two sides to this debate. In fact, I count four. Bob Lanier is pro-growth and anti-planning. The people fighting the Ashby highrise are anti-growth and pro-planning; they want new regulations to prevent new development in their neighborhoods. But many of the people talking about planning are actually pro-growth and pro-planning; they see Houston is growing and they want that growth to happen intelligently. And if you look hard enough you’ll find people who are anti-growth and anti-planning; they probably think that the problem is illegal immigration or maybe public subsidies for sports stadiums. It’s the anti-growth/ pro-planning people who are setting the agenda right now; a backlash against unplanned growth in established neighborhoods is leading many to want to stop growth altogether. That worries the pro-growth, anti-planning developers. But it also worries the pro-growth, pro-planning crowd. The thing to watch is who allies with whom.

Houston already has building regulations. Houston’s development regulations regulate how far buildings have to be from the street, how much parking has to be provided, how much green space there needs to be around buildings, and much more. The net effect is to limit density, increase the cost of urban development, and encourage suburban-style development. And while the city doesn’t implement use-based zoning, deed restrictions in most Houston neighborhoods do. Deed restrictions are actually more draconian than government zoning since they are so hard to change.

The Houston region has some of the strictest zoning in the country. Planned communities are called that for a reason. Every large suburban development in Houston has an extensive set of restrictions that govern the shape, appearance, and use of buildings. These are as strict as anything a government agency ever dreamed of. And suburban cities like Sugar Land has extensive government-imposed zoning as well.

Planning doesn’t imply zoning. Government agencies spend a lot of money on building things: roads, sewers, drainage, water lines, parks, transit, fire stations, libraries. These things are the infrastructure of growth, so where and how they are built helps determine where growth will happen. Harris County, the City of Houston, and the Texas Department of Transportation are routinely predicting and encouraging development by building new roads and new highways. They’re also trying to keep up with growth. But the agencies that build these things often don’t talk to each other. Simply coordinating the efforts of multiple agencies to avoid costly duplication and to cost-effectively support growth could go a long way.

Zoning doesn’t imply planning. In the perfect world of a textbooks, planners divide a city into zones based on some broad vision. In reality, zoning has to be tailored to existing conditions, and then it’s repeatedly changed based on the desires of neighborhoods and developers. The result is a mess, dictated not by a coherent plan but by whoever has the most political clout. These random and oddly specific rules often have strange results: there’s a new condo development in New York where owners can’t stay more than 120 days a year and no more than 39 days in a row since it’s zoned as a hotel.

Developers dislike uncertainty more than they dislike rules. Buying land and developing a building is a risky business: you’re making a bet that you can building on time and on budget and that the market is on your side. Regulations that are unclear, or regulations that require the developer to get political approvals, add to that risk. Neighborhoods often push for such regulations. But the irony is that neighborhoods benefit for unambiguous rules, too, since they mean it’s not necessary to mobilize and fight each new development proposal.

There is an intriguing possibility here. Conventional zoning is clearly imperfect, and so is Houston’s current regulatory system. Could we come up with something that’s better than either? Or will we simply re-fight old fights based on incorrect assumptions?