The Antiplanner

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1. 1 On January 8th, 2008, Neal Meyer said:

   Antiplanner,

   The planners and Smart Growth crowd have been quite busy planning away and imposing their visions here in recent years. They are led here by Councilmember Peter Brown, a certified blue ribbon member of the Smart Growth movement. Some, but by no means all of their interventions include:

   1) Mr. Brown authored a requirement pushed through last year mandating that developers must set a minimum amount of park space aside along with their developments. The Inner Loop of Houston should have less park space than we lucky types who get mandated more park space outside 610 Loop. Previously, we in Houston relied on voluntary donations of park land.

   Of course the people who pushed this through cited studies by “the experts” denoting that urban areas should have X percentage of park space to be an “ideal” City. I’ve visited dozens of cities on five continents and have seen cities with little park space (like Bangkok) and some with lots of it (like London). Judgments like this are some of the most subjective judgments I have ever heard.

   I know a 2-3 hobby lobbyists who have demanded more park land, but I have lived here some 35 years of my life. Outside of those handful of hobby lobbyists, I have never heard any of my thousands of neighbors, co-workers or friends that I have known throughout the years wail that Houston didn’t have enough park space. The locals complain about public safety, property taxes and traffic jams, but nobody complains that Houston doesn’t have enough park space.

   2) In a horrifying regulatory takings disaster, the City of Houston, with no public notice or debate whatsoever, pushed through the Floodway Ordinance which affects some 10,000 property and business owners. View this website to read about their unfolding disaster:

   http://houstonfloodway.org/

   The group thinks that the value of the City’s swiping will be some $3 billion and the City of Houston has no plans to compensate property owners. This ordinance change is being challenged in court.

   3) There is an “urban corridors” initiative that was pushed through for light rail pork. This is to “guide” real estate development along the proposed light rail corridors. This is because the FTA demands proof of transit supportive land use policies, which because Houston doesn’t have zoning, was required to implement in order to get the federal grant money. The powers that be haven’t told the poor souls that our transit agency will possess eminent domain powers in these corridors.

   4) The Ashbury Highrise incident:

   Late last year, a real estate developer who purchased some properties from willing sellers and got all of the necessary permits from the City, started work on a 23 story highrise in a very affluent and politically active neighborhood. The neighborhood kicked it into high gear and pushed our Mayor, Bill White, to revise building codes in such areas at warp speed. Mr. Brown was out in front with them and now there is a movement to push through form based codes.

   This inspite of the fact that Houston has quite a few of highrises in residential areas, both wealthy and poor. When you come to the ADC conference in May, I will be happy to show you some of them.

   Mr. Lanier is very old, very rich, and very politically connected. He still swings a mighty big bat in these parts. Hopefully he and his coalition will be able to make Mr. Brown and his Smart Growth dreamer friends understand that enacting their visions, for which others will pay and from which they will do their best to exempt themselves from, will have consequences for the rest of us.

   posted on January 8th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

2. 2 On January 9th, 2008, Lorianne said:

   What do a bunch of NIMBY residents opposing Ashbury Highrise have to do with ‘smart growth’? Answer: nothing.

   This is nimbyism pure and simple and predates ‘smart growth’ initiatives by several millenia.

   posted on January 9th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

3. 3 On January 10th, 2008, Nathan said:

   “This is nimbyism pure and simple and predates ’smart growth’ initiatives by several millenia.”

   Yup. The anti-high rise folks are also lying when they say that they are concerned about traffic. They clearly are concerned about form. For more information about the project, please see: http://buckfund.com/1717%20Bissonnet/index.html

   As for the posted article, I am pleasantly surprised by Mayor Lanier’s involvement. Lanier was mayor during the last major zoning controversy in Houston. As most here know, Houston has no zoning. In 1993, the Mayor and Council proposed adopting a zoning ordinance. Lanier supported zoning. A referendum was held and zoning was defeated (as it was in 1948 & 1962). Low income and minority voters were especially against zoning. In 1994, another referendum amending the City Charter was held which stripped the City Council of the power to adopt a zoning ordinance. Zoning in Houston may only be adopted by referendum. Has Lanier changed his opinion on planning?

   The controversy over the Bissonnet high rise has exposed the pitfalls of getting the government involved in land-use decisions. The opponents are essentially asking the government to prohibit apartments from being built in wealthy neighborhoods. Many Houstonians see this and I believe that the high-rise will be built. I don’t understand where the city council would have the authority to prohibit the high-rise, since it has no zoning authority.

   As for the issues that Neal brought up, I too am very concerned about Peter Brown. Since he had so much trouble getting on the council, I hope that discourages him from running for mayor.

   What Neal did not mention regarding the park ordinance is that in lieu of donating park land, developers can pay $700 per residential unit. A bad ordinance, as I think all residents should pay for additional park space if that is what residents really want. In the end, $700 is not a huge burden.

   The floodway ordinance is an outrage, but is not a smart growth issue. The city is trying to push flood control costs on people that happen to live near streams. Floods are a major issue, but the residents have had their land values destroyed and should be compensated.

   As for the “urban corridors” initiative, I am unaware of any final proposal and I believe they are still in study mode. They better not subsidize developments. This is wrong and I don’t think Houstonians will support it. Other ideas for the “urban corridors” are no bad. I don’t object to reducing or eliminating the off-street parking requirements as developers are smart enough to build adequate parking no matter what the city says. They have also proposed eliminating setback requirements. Also a good idea. I would support this type of deregulation citywide (downtown has no parking or setback rules). They have also proposed public space improvements, such as landscaping, benches, etc. I don’t object to that. However, I always worry when planners talk about incentivizing development. This is fine, so long as the incentive is obtained by removing government regulations that discourage development, as in the case of set backs and off street parking requirements.

   The designation of the Old Sixth as a historic district is an outrage and worrying.

   posted on January 10th, 2008 at 9:29 am

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