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Category Archives: Regional planning

Oregon Land-Use Board Says Zoning Unconstitutional

By | | Regional planning
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In a stunning move, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, which reviews citizen challenges to zoning and other local land-use decisions, has ruled that a zoning code in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro is unconstitutional. The decision applies to an zone that required that all owners of land within 6,000 feet of the Hillsboro Airport give an avignation easement in order to get a permit to improve or change their land. Such an easement would prevent them from protesting any airport activities and would have to be given without compensation.

LUBA’s ruling concluded that this taking of property without compensation was unconstitutional under both the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a similar provision in Oregon’s constitution. Of course, the question this raises is: if forcing someone to give up an easement without compensation is unconstitutional, how could be constitutional to downzone someone’s property from, say, 10-acre lot sizes to 40-acre lot sizes? The first involves an easement while the second is simply taking away someone’s right to use their property, but both are takings.
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Naturally, Hillsboro and the airport are appealing the ruling. If it stands, no doubt many other Oregon property owners will raise similar arguments in their own cases.

Whaddya Know

By | | Planning Disasters, Regional planning
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Is Portland’s Plan Working?

By | | News commentary, Regional planning, Urban areas
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A new census of downtown Portland employers reveals that, for the first time since the annual census began in 2001, the number of downtown workers taking transit to work exceeded the number driving in 2009. This isn’t because the number taking transit to work increased — it declined by 6 percent — but because the number biking and walking to work grew by 170 percent.

You can look at all the census data for 2001 through 2006 in the 2006 report. The 2007, 2008, and 2008 reports contain commuting data only for those years. These data were collected by the Portland Business Alliance.

The increase in biking and walking to work accounts for almost 90 percent of the reduction in driving to work, and some might say this is a victory for Portland planners. But a comparison of the downtown census data with U.S. census data for the city of Portland and Portland urban area in 2000 and 2008 reveal some problems. (Note: The U.S. Census did not report commuting data in its 2001 survey, and the 2009 survey data are not out yet, so I am using 2000 and 2008 to compare with the downtown census’ 2001 and 2009 data.)

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Hawaii – Land of Crony Capitalism

By | | Regional planning, Travels
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Wikipedia defines crony capitalism as an “allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businesspeople and government officials.” Crony capitalism has sadly played an important role in state and, especially, local government for just about ever. But Hawaii suffers from a particularly strong case.

Hawaii’s history of crony capitalism dates back at least to the mid-1950s. Before then, the future state was run by an oligarchy consisting of the Big Five land-owning companies and a sixth company that was mainly involved in construction. The oligarchy ran the political, economic, and social system of the entire territory in a system that would be considered more feudal than crony capitalistic. Nearly all of the private land in the islands was owned by one of these companies or a relative handful of other families, companies, or trusts, leaving only about 3 percent of the state available for fee simple ownership by ordinary residents.

That began to change in 1954, when reform-oriented Democrats, bolstered by the votes of children of immigrant workers from Japan, China, and the Philippines, took control of the legislature for the first time in the territory’s history. Among other things, the Democrats promised land reform so that more land and opportunities would be available to the average person.

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The Antiplanner’s Library: Visiting Paradise

By | | Book reviews, Planning Disasters, Regional planning
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One of the Antiplanner’s co-speakers during a couple of events in Honolulu is David Callies, a law professor and author of two books on Hawaii land-use law: Regulating Paradise and Preserving Paradise. Hawaii passed the first statewide growth-management law in 1961, and still has about the strictest land-use laws in the nation. Not coincidentally, it also competes with California in having the nation’s least-affordable housing.

Regulating Paradise, a 1984 book that Callies is currently updating, shows that the 1961 law (sometimes called Act 187) is only one of several laws that have limited development of the state. Landowners in some parts of the state have to comply with as many as 30 different sets of regulations, from historic preservation to coastal zone management.

The original purpose of the 1961 law was to protect farmland. But Callies points out that this backfired. By limited urban development to about 5 percent of the Hawaiian Islands, the law made housing so expensive that farmers could not pay workers a living wage and compete with other tropical countries that grew similar crops. As a result, Hawaiian agriculture is in decline, and the only justification for the land-use law is to provide scenic views for upper-middle class urbanites.

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Urban Planners’ Employment Act

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
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Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a “Livable Communities Act” that promises more than $4 billion in federal grants to communities that promote smart-growth principles. The Senate held hearings on the bill last week, and a somewhat similar bill has been introduced in the House by Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey.

The Senate bill starts out with “findings” that repeat all the usual smart-growth crap that is mostly false and all highly debatable. Some of the findings imply that there is a growing demand for high-density, mixed-use housing. But if that is true, why does the federal government need to subsidize it?

The bill laments that “as much as 30 percent of current demand for housing is for housing in dense, walkable, mixed-use communities,” while “less than 2 percent of new housing is in this category.” Of course, that may be because many cities have a surplus of existing housing that fits this description, so they don’t need any new construction. (It may also be that “as much as 30 percent” is really more like “less than 20 percent.)

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The Broken Ladder

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
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Southern California writer Joel Kotkin has a new report about urban growth that in many ways is a sequel to his previous report on Opportunity Urbanism. While Opportunity Urbanism focused on Houston, The Broken Ladder look at London, Mexico City, and Mumbai. The common theme is that density is no longer vital to wealth creation, and land-use regulation aimed at achieving such density
has become an obstacle to the upward mobility of low- and middle-income people.

Kotkin also has a great web site, NewGeography, which has numerous contributors and in many ways is an antidote to the anti-suburbs, anti-auto sites that have proliferated across the web. For example, two writers from the center-left New Democrat Network have an article pointing out that a majority of blacks, Latinos, and other minorities all now live in the suburbs, so the old arguments that suburbs were the result of “white flight” is no longer valid.
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Much More Ado about the Suburbs

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
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“White Flight: Suburbs Lose Young Whites to Cities,” proclaims the headlines. While whites are moving to the cities, the suburbs are supposedly turning into slums. Horrors! Sounds like a job for Superbiggovernmentman!

A few decades ago, urban planners knew suburbs were evil because they were enclaves of wealthy whites, while downtrodden poor and minorities were left behind in the cities. But a new report (part one and part two — 8 and 16 MB respectively) from the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program reveals that suburbs today include people of all incomes and all races. Instead of viewing this as a cause for celebration, the report’s writers argue that “National policy makers have the unique obligation” to “manage this change.”

One of the report’s co-authors, William Frey, was quoted by the media saying, “What used to be white flight to the suburbs is turning into ‘bright flight’ to cities that have become magnets for aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambiance as an attraction.” In fact, there are no data in the report to support the claim that suburbs are “losing” young whites or high-income whites to the cities.

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America 2050

By | | Regional planning
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Think back (if you are old enough) to 1970 and imagine you were then asked to write a plan for America for 2010. In 1970, you wouldn’t have known about personal computers, and so you probably wouldn’t expect that the number of people working at home in 2010 would be growing faster than the number of people riding transit to work.

In 1970 you wouldn’t have known about the Internet and FedEx (which began in 1973), and so you probably wouldn’t have predicted that many people in 2010 would shop from home and have their goods delivered to them by truck. (In 1970, for those who don’t remember, UPS home deliveries were rare.)

In 1970, the private railroads still operated passenger trains and the airlines hadn’t been deregulated yet so airfares were mainly at wealthy and business travelers. So you probably wouldn’t have predicted the doubling in per capita air travel or that air travel would be one-fourth the cost, per passenger mile, of passenger trains.

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Mansion or Crack House?

By | | Regional planning, Urban areas
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Normally, the Antiplanner doesn’t have time for on-line games. But here is a great on-line game illustrating the insanity of housing in Vancouver, BC, which Wendell Cox says is the least-affordable housing market in Consume Medicine In The Presence Of Sexual Stimulation The penis becomes hard by the flow of the blood into the male reproductive uk viagra online organ. It is a vicious cycle that can seriously put viagra uk delivery your sexual life in danger. Lawax capsules improve stamina, strength and offers control over your ejaculate and helps to last longer in controlling ejaculate to satisfy her in bed. cheap levitra pills It supplies the essential cialis soft generic nutrients in bio-available form. the English-speaking world. Of course, the reason it is unaffordable is that Vancouver adopted a growth-management plan in the 1970s that put 70 percent of the land in the region off limits to development.